PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


BS  651  .L48  1855 

Lewis,  Tayler,  1802-1877 

The  six  days  of  creation 


Shelf. 


THE 


r 


/ 


^SIX  DAYS  OF  CREATION 


OR, 


THE  SCIUPTURAL  COSMOLOGY, 


WITH   THE    ANCIENT   IDEA  OF 


r  I  M  E  -  W  O  R  1.  D  8. 


IN  DISTINCTION  FPidr.I 


WOKLDS  IN  SPACE, 


By  TAYLEii  LEWIS, 

PROFESSOR  OF  GREEK  IN  UNION*  COLLEGE. 


BatfiXsia  '^ro.vrwv  TOJV  a/:^VWV. —Psalms,  cxlv,  13-— l  Tim.  i,  17. 

Fide  intelligimiis  aptata  osse  secula  Verbo  Dei,  ut  ex  invisibilibus  visibilia 
fiereut. 

By  faith  we  understand  that  the  ages  were  framed  by  the  Word  of  God,  so 
that  from  things  unsekn  came  forth  the  things  that  do  appear.— Hebrews, 
xi,  3.  Old  Greek,  Syriac,  and  Latin  Versions. 


SCHENECTADY  : 

PUBLISHED  ll\  G.  Y.  VAN  DEBOGEKT, 
LONDON  :  JOHN  CHAPMAN. 


1855. 


V,      yw 


i^nterecl  according  to  Act  of  Congi'ess,  in  tlic  year  1855, 

BY    GILES   Y.    VAN   DEBOGEKT, 

ill  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Ccur'i  for  the  Northern  District  of 
New-York. 


Tijpo^rdpliii  and  PrinltJi^  I-  SLcrcotypcd  hy 

RlGGa,   SCHENECTADY.  VAN  BENTHUYSEX,   ALBANY 


TO 

GREEK    PKOFESSOR 
IN    THE    NKW-Y<JKK    UNIVERSITY, 

THIS  WORK 

IS    RESPECTFULLY    INSCRIBED, 

3n  (CcsKmong 

OF    THE    author's    REGARD    FOR    HIM 

A?    A    PERSONAL    FRIEND    AND    CONSERVATIVE    SCHOLAR 

AS    WELL    AS 

IN    REMEMBRANCE    OF 

HIS    HIGHLY    USEFUL    POSITION    A> 

PRESIDENT 

Of    THE    YOUNG    MEn's    CHRISTIAN    ASSOCIATION 

OF    THS    CITY    OF    NEVV-YORIC. 


PREFACE. 


Creation  in  its  six  timed  aspect  has  lately  called  forth 
several  able  and  valuable  works.  Almost  all  of  these 
may  be  said  to  view  the  subject  from  what  may  be  called 
the  scientific  side.  Their  object  is  to  reconcile,  in  some 
way,  the  statements  in  Genesis  with  an  assumed  scien- 
tific scheme.  Hence  even  the  theologians  among  them 
are  content  with  what  may  be  deemed  a  possible  inter- 
pretation. Their  argument  runs  thus  :  The  Bible  mai/ 
have  this  sense  ;  it  must  have  this  sense  to  be  consistent 
with  acknowledged  science  ;  and,  therefore,  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  all  truth  must  be  consistent  with  other  truth, 
it  actually  has  this  sense.  The  reasoning  is  correct ; 
the  conclusion  comes  logically  from  the  premises ;  but  it 
is  not  satisfactory  because  it  is  felt  to  rest,  not  primarily, 
but  only  subordinately,  on  the  Bible  itself 

The  author  thinks  that  he  can  truly  claim  that  this  is 
the  first  attempt  to  discuss  the  whole  question,  at  any 
length,  from  the  Scriptural  or  philological  side.  Such 
an  assertion  might  seem  unjust  towards  the  pious  and 
able  men  who  have  of  late  defended  the  twenty-four 
hour  hypothesis,  but  mth.  them  too,  the  exegetical  is  far 
from  bemg  the  predominant  element,  especially  as  regards 


II  PREFACE. 

the  numerous  other  passages  that  have  a  bearing  on  the 
account  in  Genesis.  These  writers  also  have  their 
assumption,  and  their  reasoning  from  it  is  simply  an 
inversion  of  the  method  of  argument  pursued  by  their 
scientific  antagonists.  They  take  as  indisputable  a  cer- 
tain interpretation  which  they  choose  to  call  the  literal. 
Modern  science  does  not  agree  with  this  ;  therefore,  sci- 
ence, they  say,  is  false  in  its  deductions,  and  infidel  in 
its  spirit.  We  greatly  honor  these  latter  writers  for 
their  devotion  to  the  Scriptures ;  we  are  heartily  with 
them  on  that  higher  and  all-superseding  question  of  the 
absolute  infallibility  of  the  Divine  Word  ;  but  we  cannot 
endorse  their  interpretation. 

The  leading  design  of  the  present  book  is  so  fully 
stated  in  the  introductory  chapter,  that  we  need  only,  in 
this  place,  refer  very  briefly  to  a  few  queries  that  might 
be  supposed  to  arise  in  the  mind  of  the  reader.  If  the 
work  is  philological,  it  might  be  said,  why  is  there  so  much 
of  what  might  be  called  metaphysical  reasoning  ?  What 
need  of  such  a  labored  disquisition  on  language  ?  We 
reply :  The  object,  as  is  frequently  said  in  the  work  itself, 
is  to  get  the  right  hermeneutical  stand-^oint.  When 
this  has  been  lost  or  obscured,  through  change  in  the 
mode  of  thinking  or  conceiving,  it  may  require  much  and 
close  discussion  to  regain  it,  although  the  old  position 
may  once  have  been  plain  to  the  plainest  minds.  How 
labored  must  have  been  the  effort  to  give  to  one  in  the  days 


PREFACE.  in 

of  Abraham  the  views  of  modern  science  in  regard  to  the 
space  aspect  of  the  kosmos  !  How  equaUy,  if  not  more 
difficult  to  divest  our  minds  of  the  prejudices  as  well  as 
enlargement  that  science  brings  with  it,  and  get  back  to 
the  primitive  conception,  in  which,  as  we  think  is  shown 
in  this  work,  the  time  idea  was  so  predominant  over  that 
of  space  magnitude !  And  yet  this  is  the  only  position 
for  a  fair  and  unwarped  interpretation.  We  must  get 
back  into  the  early  time,  the  early  feeling,  the  early  phe- 
nomenal conceptions  then  living  powers  in  words  whose 
roots  have,  indeed,  come  down  to  us,  but  withered,  sap- 
less, obsolete,  their  freshness  gone,  their  young  pictorial 
bloom  long  since  departed.  And  here  we  would  espe- 
cially ask  the  reader's  attention  to  the  argument  in  the 
first  chapters  on  the  difference  between  the  fact  and  its 
phenomenal  representation  in  language.  Abstract  as  it 
may  appear,  we  deem  it  vital  to  the  whole  discussion. 

The  frequent  use  of  Hebrew  words  will  present  no 
impediment  to  the  general  reader,  whilst  to  the  scholar 
they  are  deemed  indispensable.  In  many  chapters  they 
are  the  very  matters  discussed,  and  could  not  have  been 
avoided.  To  have  given  them  in  Roman  letters  would 
have  been  no  better  for  the  one  class  of  readers,  whilst 
it  would  have  been  a  very  imperfect  mode  of  representa- 
tion for  the  other.  Indulgence  is  also  asked  here  for 
some  few  errors  that  escaped  notice  on  account  of  the 
minuteness  of  the  types. 


IV  PREFACE. 

Certain  Hebrew  "words,  such  as  olam,  olamim,  etc., 
have  been  transferred,  and  treated  as  current  terms  in 
our  own  lano-uasre.     It  was  thouo-ht  there  was  no  better 

o       o  o 

way  to  take  off  the  mind  from  the  inadequate  modern 
conception,  and  make  the  reader  familiar  with  that  remark- 
able plurality,  or  world-sense,  which  is  so  much  covered 
up  in  oui'  continual  translation  by  an  abstract  picture- 
less  adjective.  It  would  have  been  far  better,  we  think, 
for  the  growth  of  Biblical  knowledge  in  the  common 
mind,  had  more  of  these  old  Hebrew  time-words,  and 
along  with  them  such  terms  as  Sheol,  and  the  Divine 
names,  Elohim,  El  01am,  El  Shaddai,  El  Elioun,  etc., 
been  transferred  directly  into  our  common  English  ver- 
sion. They  would  long  ere  this  have  become  naturalized. 
The  spirit  of  the  word,  which  is  ever  strongly  attached 
to  its  old  body,  would  have  come  down  with  it.  Instead 
of  being  broken  through  the  use  of  varying  representa- 
tives in  different  passages,  its  whole  primary  meaning 
with  its  one  phenomenal  or  metaphysical  image  would 
have  appeared  in  all  its  connections  with  other  words, 
and  thus  produced  an  effect  more  forcible,  as  well  as 
more  truthful,  than  the  inadequate  vehicles  we  have 
employed  for  these  very  ancient  and  peculiar  ideas.  In 
respect  to  translations  of  Greek  and  Latin  quotations, 
the  principle  adopted  has  been  to  give  them  in  every 
case  except  where  the  substance  would  plainly  appear, 
either  in  the  context,  or  in  the  manner  of  introduction. 


PREFACE.  V 

There  are  doubtless  positions  taken  in  the  present 
work  that  may  be  regarded  as  assailable.  Some  of  these 
the  writer  feels  confident  of  being  able  to  defend  against 
any  attack.  On  the  strength  of  others  he  has  less  reli- 
ance. What  will  most  startle  some  readers,  perhaps,  is 
the  manner  of  connecting  the  Platonic  ideas  with  the 
"unseen"  entities  mentioned  by  the  Apostle,  and  from 
which  "  we  understand  by  faith  were  made  the  things 
that  do  appear."  But  here  we  would  ask  the  special 
attention  of  all  thoughtful  minds,  and  that  too  from  the 
strongest  conviction  that  the  view  presented  does  contain 
a  most  substantial  verity.  God  makes  types,  and  nature 
prints  them.  He  made  nature,  too,  and  taught  her  to 
do  her  handy-work ;  and  thus  it  is  through  the  Word  of 
the  Lord  she  is  ever  bringing  out  the  "  unseen"  in  the 
phenomenal,  ever  causmg  to  appear  the  unum  in  miiltis^, 
the  one  type  in  its  many  impressions  as  they  present 
themselves  in  the  manifold  leaves  of  her  varied  book, 
the  one  spermatic  word  in  its  many  specific  utterances, 
the  one  ancient  generic  power  in  its  many  individual 
manifestations  ;  and  so  of  all  the  original  physical  enti- 
ties that  God  created.  In  no  part  of  the  argument  does 
the  author  feel  more  confident  of  maintaining  himself  on 
the  soundest  philosophy,  the  truest  science,  and  the  most 
unforced  interpretation  of  Holy  Scripture. 

One  thing,  however,  he  can  truly  say.  The  great 
question  has  not  been  carelessly  or  crudely  treated. 


VI  PREFACE, 

The  chief  study  of  two  years  has  been  devoted  to  it 
Every  part  of  the  Bible  having  any  reference  to  creation 
has  been  carefully  examined,  not  only  in  the  Hebrew^ 
but  in  the  three  Oldest  Versions.  Importance  has  been 
attached  to  these,  not  so  much  in  the  light  of  critical 
helps,  as  for  their  furnishing  the  best  medium  through 
which  to  study  the  conceptions  that  ever  accompanied 
certain  words  in  the  ancient  mind.  Let  any  one  care- 
fully observe  the  force  of  the  plural  forms  and  world- 
senses  of  the  great  time-words  in  the  Syraic,  Septuagint, 
and  Vulgate  Versions,  as  well  as  in  the  Jewish  TargumSj 
and  he  will  need  no  other  argument  to  convince  him  that 
the  author  has  not  overrated  the  aid  they  'truly  afford  in 
the  discussion  of  this  question.  For  a  similar  reason  has 
he  resorted  to  the  Apocryphal  Books,  to  the  Koran,  to 
whatever  fragments  he  could  find  of  the  Samaritan,  or  of 
the  Coptic  as  evidence  of  the  old  Egyptian.  I  search 
of  the  same  idea,  too,  he  has  gone  to  the  remains  of  the 
Gothic  translation  of  Ulfilas,  as  the  oldest  version  in  a 
language  nearest  related  to  our  own. 

The  work  is,  therefore,  presented  to  the  public  with 
the  hope,  which  the  writer  trusts  it  is  no  breach  of 
modesty  to  express,  that  even  those  who  may  regard  his 
main  positions  as  yet  resting  in  uncertainty,  will  concede 
that  in  other  respects  he  has  made  some  contribution  to 
our  Biblical  literature. 

Union  College,  May  10, 1855. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. — -LEADING   DESIGNS    AND    LEADING    IDEAS. 

CHAPTER  II. 

BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION. 
I«  the  Bible  to  be  Interpreted  as  Other  Books? — What  is  it  Designed  to 
teach  ?^Style  of  the  Mosaic  Account  of  Creation 

CHAPTER  III. 

PHENOMENAL   LANGUAGE. 
Four  Distinctions,— The  Fact,  the  Concei3tion,  the  Emotion,  the  Philosophy. 
— God  can  make  a  Revelation  to  us  only  through  our  Conceptions. — All 
Human  Speech  Phenomenal.^This  especially  ti-ue  of  the  Earliest  Lan- 
guages  

CHAPTER  IV. 

ILLUSTRATIONS    FROM    SCRIPTURE, 
The  Expression,  The  Voice  of  the  Lord. — The  Heaven  of  Heavens. — The 
Third  Heavens. — Hebrew  Language  for  Eclipses  of  the  Sun  and  Moon. — 
Anthropomorphism. — Parts  of  the  Body,  as  Names  for  Soul 

CHAPTER  V. 

ANALYSIS  OF  THE  LEADING  IDEA  IN  ITS  APPLICATION  TO 
THE    MOSAIC    ACCOUNT. 

Facts  as  distinguished  from  Appearances. — Divine  Facts.— Divine  Acts  or 
Beginnings  in  Nature. — Three  Kinds  of  Naturalism. — Blank  Naturalism. — - 
Theistic  Naturalism,  or  Naturalism  of  Science  with  its  One  First  Cause. — 
The  Religious  or  Supernatural  Naturalism. — Six  Divine  Acts  or  Begin- 
nings recorded  in  Genesis. — Three  Kinds  of  Phenomenal  Language.^The 
Simply  Phenomenal,  as  distinguished  from  the  Scientific  and  Poetical. — 
Each  has  its  own  Grammar  and  Lexicon 


13 


20 


28 


36 


CHAPTER  VI. 

WORK    OF    THE    FIRST    DAY.       BEGINNING    OF    CREATION. 

The  Mosaic  Beginning  not  the  Absolute  Pnncipium. — The  First  Verse  not  to 
be  separated  from  the  rest. — The  First  Origination  of  Matter. — What  is 
Matter? — The  Hebrew  Bar  a, — the  Latin  Creare. — The  Heavens — Atmo- 
sphericaFand  Astronomical. — The  Hebrew  Tebel. — The  Glory  above  the       .  * 
Heavens — Dual  Form  of  the  Hebrew  Word 44 

CHAPTER  VII. 

WORK   OF    THE   FIRST   DAY.       THE   CHAOS. 

The  Connecting  Particle  between  the  First  Verse  and  the  Second. — Tohu 
and  Bohu. — Was  the  Chaos  a  part  of  the  Mosaic  Creation  ? — What  was  the 
Chaos  ?— Milton— Ovid» — The  Darkness.— The  Abyss. — The  Ruah  Elohim. 
— Merachepeth,  the  Hebrew  Word  for  the  Spirit's  Agency. — Its  Primary      ^  . 
Pulsatile  or  Throbbing  Sense. — Ancient  Myth  of  the  Egg t)^ » 


80 


Vlll  CONrENDS. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

WORK    OF    THE    FIRST   DAY.       THE   LIGHT. 

The  Command  to  the  Lighn— Interpretation— Was  it  the  First  Origin  of 
Light  ?— Is  Light  Eternal  ?— God  dwelling  in  Light— The  Light  his  Robe. 
—Milton. — Longinus. — Division  of  the  Light  Irom  the  Darkness. — The 
Naming  of  the  Light  and  the  Darkness.— Day  and  Night.— The  Hebrew 
Word  Yom.— Had' Moses  the  Conception  of  a  Solar  Day  of  Twenty-Four 
Hours  ?— No  Trace  of  such  Conception  in  any  Subsequent  Hebrew  Prose  /»« 
or  PoetiT ^^ 

CHAPTER  IX. 

WORK    OF    THE    FIRST   DAY.       THE   WORDS,    DAY    MORNING 
AND    EVENING. 

The  Night  comes  first.— What  was  the  First  Night?— The  First  Morning.— 
Indefinite  Use  of  the  Word  Day. — Extraordinary  on  the  very  Face  of  the 
Account. — Objection  Considered. — Mention  of  Evening  and  Morning. — 
Etymological  Analysis. — The  Koran. — Argument  from  the  PecuUar  Style 
of  the  Expression.— When  did  the  First  Night  begin  ? — Difficulties  in  the 
Way  of  the  Twenty-Four  Hour  Measurement. — The  First  Day  a  Key  to 
all  the  rest. — Creation  a  Succession  of  Natural  Processes  commenced  by 
Supernatural  Acts > 

CHAPTER  X. 

WORK  OF  THE  SECOND  DAY.   THE  FIRMAMENT. 

Creation  of  the  Firmament. — Scientific  Objection. — Ignorance  of  Moses.— 
The  Fact. — The  Conception  of  the  Fact. — Phenomenal  Language. — Scien- 
tific Language. — Changes  in  Astronomical  Language. — In  Optical  and 
Chemical  Language. — Superiority  of  the  Bible  Language. — Never  becomes 
Obsolete.^ — The  Objection  lies  as  well  to  many  other  Parts  of  the  Scripture. 
—Examples  from  New  Testament. — Language  of  Prophecy. — Time- 
Words  of  Prophecy. — Analogous  Language  in  Respect  to  the  Human 
Body.— Illustration  from  Psalm,  cxxxix. — The  Hebrew  Word  for  Firma- 
ment.— The  Physical  Process  it  represents. — Comparison  with  Scientific 
Language. — The  Latter  also  Phenomenal 

CHAPTER  XI. 

WORK  OF  THE  THIRD  DAY.  THE  DIVISION  OF  LAND  AND 
WATER. 

Does  the  Spirit  in  Creation  always  accompany  the  Word? — The  Expression 
"Under  the  Whole  Heaven.'" — The  Dravnng  oflf  of  the  Waters. — Inter- 
pretation of  the  Hebrew  Verb.— The  Appearing  of  the  Land. — The  Crea- 
tive Energy  in  the  Earth. — The  Upheaving  ot  the  Land. — Birth  of  the 
Mountains. — Psalm  xc  and  civ.— Drying  of  the  Land. — Three  Hypotheses. 
— The  Supernatural  Throughout. — The  Natural  all  in  the  Space  of  Twenty* 
Four  Hours. — The  Natural  with  an  Indefinite  Period. — Was  there  a  Sus- 
pension of  the  Propeities  of  Earth  and  Fluids  ? 


102 


121 


CHAPTER  XII. 

WORK   OF    THE   FOURTH   DAY.       THE   HEAVENLY    BODIES. 

Creation  of  the  Sun  and  Moon. — Their  Appearance. — Their  Appointment  in 
the  Heavens. — Objections. — Theories. — Not  Incredible  that  their  Adjust- 
ment should  have  been  later  than  that  of  the  Earth. — Bulk  no  Measure  of 
Rank. — Our  utter  Ignorance  of  what  is  becoming  in  the  Divine  Work. — 
What  is  the  Making  of  a  Thing  ? — The  Work  of  the  Fourth  Day  an  Arrange-  -  q  , 
ment. — Narrowness  of  Science. — Inteipretation  of  the  Hebrew  Words. . .    i-Oi 


CONTENTS.  IX 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

SOLAR    DAT    AND    SOLAR    DIVISIONS    0¥    TIME.        TIME-MEA 
SUREMENTS    AND    TIME-IDEAS. 

First  Meution  of  the  Solar  Day. — Could  tlie  Previous  Days  have  been  of  the 
same  Kind.— Question  Resumed. — The  Word  Day. — Analysis  of  the  Essen- 
tial Idea. — Its  Four  Constituent  Elements. — Words  Morning  and  Evening 
compared  with  Spring:  and  Fall. — Reasons  for  Dwelling  on  this. — The  Ti-u8 
Conceptive  Stand-point. — Must  carry  ourselves  back  into  the  Old  Hebrew 
Feeling. — The  Periodical  Idea. — Different  Kinds  of  Astronomical  Days. — 
Idea  of  Duration. — The  Day  the  Unit.-^-Hours  derive  their  Measure 
from  it. — God'a  Estunate  of  Time. — "A  Thousand  Years  as  one  Day.'" — 
"  His  Thoughts  are  not  as  our  Thoughts." 

CHAPTER  XIY. 

AS  THE  HEAVENS  ARE  HIGH  ABOVE  THE  EARTH,  SO  ARE 

god's  ways  ABOVE  OUR  WAYS,  AND  HIS  THOUGHTS 

ABOVE  OUR  THOUGHTS. 
Ideas  of  Succession  and  Duration. — Do  they  exist  in  the  Divine  Mind? — 
Why  was  not  Creation  Instantaneous  ? — The  Di\'ine  Ways  Unsearchable- 
— The  Child  Interrogating  Newton. — Augustine's  View  of  the  Creative 
Days. — Dies  Ineffabiles. — Probable  Conception  of  Moses. — Objection  con- 
sidered.— Language  of  Prophecy.— Mysteriousness  of  the  Style 


151 


166 


198 


CHAPTER  XV. 

CREATION    OF    TIME. 
Division  of  Time. — Rule  of  the  Heavenly  Bodies. — Regulate  our  Physical 
Life. — An  Aid  to  our  Rational  Existence.— He  made  the  Stars  also. — lu 
what  Sense  made  for  us. — Regulators  of  the  Seasons. — The  Poet  Aratus.   •>  q^ 
— Whole  for  the  Parts. — Astrology. — Phenomenal  Uses 1  oO 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

WORK    OF    THE    FIFTH   DAY. 

Production  of  the  Animal  Races. — Production  out  of  the  Earth.— Literal 
Sense  — Common  Prejudices. — Must  not  be  Afraid  of  Naturalism. — Hebrew 
Words  of  Production. — Definition  of  Nature. — Discrete  Degi-ees  can  never 
Pass  into  each  other. — The  Supernatural. — The  Connatural. — The  Contra- 
natural. — The  Unnatural.  —Words  for  Growth  and  Birth  imply  Duration. 
— Theories  of  Animal  Production. — Milton. — Old  Greek  Fancies. — The 
Oranific  Word. — A  Natxii-e  in  the  Earth 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

WORK  OF  THE  FIFTH  DAY. 
Growth  from  the  Earth. — Was  it  a  Growth  of  Individuals  or  of  Species  t 
— Either  View  may  be  Piously  held. — The  Acari  Insects  and  Mr.  Cross. — 
Nature  a  Stream — A  Supernatural  Seed  dropped  into  it. — How  did  the 
First  Plants  Grow? — The  First  Animals. — Hebrew  Words  employed. — 
We  must  keep  close  to  the  Record. — The  Great  Whales. — Science  can  ci-to 
trace  Footsteps  but  tell  us  nothing  of  Origin JtLO 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

WHAT    IS    MEANT    BY    GOd's    MAKING    THE    PLANT    BEFORE 
IT    WAS    IN    THE  EARTH. 

What  was  first  made?  Was  it  the  Tree  or  the  Seed?  or  Something  before 
the  Seed? — Interpretation  of  Genesis,  ii,  5 — Interpretation  of  Hebrews, 
xi,  3. — Vulgate  and  Syriac  Versions. — Greek  Commentators. — Internal 
Evidence.— Calvin. — Whence  did  Paul  learn  his  Doctrine  of  the  Creative 
Word? — Colossians,  i,  16. — What  are  meant  by  the  Unseen  Things? —  nni-t 
Seminal  Powers. — Plato. — God  the  Architect  of  Ideas ■^•^•^ 


233 


246 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE    CYCLICAL    LAW    OF    ALL    NATURES. 

Two  Contrasted  States  in  all  Natures. — Each  has  its  Morning  and  its  Even- 
ing.— Necessity  for  this. — Growth  to  a  Maximum. — That  whose  Law  of 
Existence  is  Growth  must  Decline. — The  Tree  could  not  live  forever. — 
Why? — The  same  Law  in  the  Largest  as  in  the  Smallest  Physical  Growth?. 
— Applies  to  Plants,  to  Animals,  to  Races,  to  Nations,  to  Ages  or  Worlds. 
— Hence  the  Necessity  of  Repeated  Mornings,  or  Interpositions  of  the 
Supernatural. — Illustration  from  a  Platonic  Myth 

CHAPTER  XX. 

WORK  OF  THE  SIXTH  DAY.  CREATION  OF  MAN. 
Man  a  Special  Creation. — Not  Created  as  a  Race. — Descent  from  a  Pair. — 
The  Expression  "From  the  Dust  of  the  Earth."-^The  Tiiie  Human 
Beginning  dates  from  the  Spiritual  Origin. — The  Primus  Homo. — The 
Nephesh  Hayijn,  or  Breath  of  Life. — The  Teim  is  used  of  Animals  as  well 
as  of  Man. — But  is  applied  to  Ma-i  in  a  Higher  and  Peculiar  Sense. — 
Haijyim,  the  Word  for  Life,  is  Plural. — Why  ?— Animation  ot  the  Aniraala 
is  from  the  Earth  and  returns  to  the  Earth. — Virgil. — Ecclesiastes,  iii,  21, 
— The  Divine  Image. — Ground  of  the  Human  Dignity  and  Immortality. — 
The  Old  Word  Covenant. — Life  an  Inheritance. — Salvation  a  Restoration 
or  Redemption 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE    SEVENTH   DAY.       ARGUMENT   FROM    THE    SABBATH, 

Commencement  of  the  Sabbath  in  the  Evening.— Does  it  still  Continue? — 
The  Less  a  Type  of  the  Greater.— The  Solar  a  Type  of  the  iEonic  or 
Olamic  Period. — Objection  Stated. — Jewish  Hebdomads. — Weekly,  Sep- 
tennial, Pentecostal. — Da\ad  Parens. — Augustine. — Patristic  Idea  of  the 
Seven  Ages  of  the  World. — We  are  in  the  Sabbath  Eve  of  the  World. — 
The  Sabbath  Morning  the  Latter  Day  Glory  ot  the  Church. — Objection 
from  the  Language  ot  the  Fourth  Commandment. — Answer  to  it 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

ANTIQUITY  OF  THE  MOSAIC  ACCOUNT. 
Was  it  Derived  from  the  Egj^ptian,  Phoenician,  or  other  Ancient  Cosmogo- 
nies ? — Anti  Biblical  Spirit  of  Certain  Commentators. — Jews  not  a  Scientific 
or  Philosophical  People. — Other  Cosmogonies  exhibit  a  Pantheistic  Philo- 
sophy.— Theogonies  rather  than  Cosmogonies. — Pindar. — Which  is  the 
Original  and  which  the  Copy  ? — The  Pure  Theism  of  the  Mosaic  Account 
an  E  vidence  of  its  Great  Antiquity. — Other  Myths  National. — The  Account 
of  Creation  has  nothing  peculiarly  Jewish. — Stands  at  the  Head  of  all  His- 
torJ^ — What  was  its^Date? — Abraham. — Enoch. — Its  Style. — Its  Unity. — 
Not  a  Growth  like  other  Myths 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

HEATHEN   COSMOGONIES   DERIVED    FROM   THE   MOSAIC 
ACCOUNT, 
Myths  Derived  from  the  Account  of  the  Brooding  Spirit.— Myth  of  Incuba- 
tion or  the  Egg. — Aristophanes. — Eros  or  Love. — The  Chaos. — Mosaic 
Idea  of  Separation  or  Division.— Homer's  Myths  of  Oceanus  and  Tethys.— 
The  Sea  the  Mother  of  Animals. — Thales  makes  Water  the  Oldest  Ele- 
ment.— Kronos  Son  of  Uranus.— Time  Son  of  Heaven. — Diodorus  Siculus. 
—Remarkable  Coincidences  between  the  Language  ot  Ovid  and  that  of  c\f\t* 
Moses r.... 296 


261 


279 


CONTENTS.  XI 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

ANCIENT    IDEA   OF    CREATION    AS    A    GENESIS    OR    GROWTH. 

The  Idea  of  a  Genesis  held  by  the  Ancient  Theists. — Consistent  with  the 
Belief  in  a  Divine  Work. — Aristotle. — Plato. — Anaxagoras. — The  Fathers. 
— Augustine. — Genesis  the  Name  given  in  the  Septuagint. — The  Jewish 
Notion  of  a  Growth  or  Nature. — Hebrew  Words  of  Generation. — The 
Sacred  Writers  fond  of  representing  the  World  as  a  Birth. — Are  these 
Expressions  Metaphors? — If  Metaphors,  they  would  not  have  grown  out  qA'7 
of  Modem  Ideas ""  i 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

ANTIQUITY  OF  THE  LOGOS.       INTERPRETATION  OF  PROVERBS, 
VIII,    AND   MICAH,    V,    1. 

Creation  the  Grand  Epic  of  Hebrew  Poetiy. — Antiquity  of  Wisdom. — Pro- 
verbs, viii. — Is  it  a  Personification? — Language  of  Paul  in  Colossians. — 
Translation  of  Proverbs,  viii. — Interpretation.— The  Design  of  the  Passage. 
—To  Set  forth  Great  Antiquity.— The  "Highest  Part  of  the  Dust  of  the 
World." — Wisdom  rejoices  in  Creation. — Rejoices  exceedingly  in  the 
Creation  of  Man. — Interpretation  of  Micah,  v,  1. — Psalm  ex. — The  Word 
Olam. — Time  in  the  Bible  as  disting-uished  from  Eternity. — Time  Mea-  qi  c 
sures. — Difficiilt  Problem. — Rashness  of  Science oxO 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

THE  TRINE  ASPECT  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 

Worlds  in  Space. — Worlds  in  Time. — Worlds  in  Degree  or  Altitude. — Like 
the  Three  Dimensions  in  Geometry. — The  Space  Aspect  the  Field  of 
Modern  Science. — Plurality  of  Worlds  in  Space. — Emotional  View  of  the 
Greatness  of  the  Universe. — Not  Dependent  on  Ideas  of  Numerical  Quan- 
tity.— The  Space  Aspect  not  Prominent  in  the  Bible — Is  the  Exercise  of 
Creative  Power  a  Necessary  Attribute  of  Deity? — Worlds  in  Degree,  or 
Ascending  Orders  of  Being,  Recognized  in  the  Scriptures. — The  Epithet, . 
The  Lord  of  Hosts. — Greek  and  Hebrew  Idea  Contrasted. — Physical  Har-  qqq 
mony. — Harmony  of  Empire OOO 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

PLURALITY    OF    TIME-WORLDS.        A    PRIORI    DEDUCTION    OF 
THE   IDEA. 

The  Time  Aspect  of  the  World  just  coming  into  Science. — How  it  Appears 
in  the  Scriptures. — Remarkable  use  of  AION  in  the  New  Testament  for 
the  World  itself,  and  of  the  Plural  for  Worlds.— Hebrews,  i,  2,  xi,  3.— 
From  what  Laws  of  Thinking  came  this  Strange  Idiom  ? — How  Ditferent 
from  the  Modern  Idea. — Insufficient  Explanations. — It  denotes  Time- 
Worlds  in  distinction  from  Worlds  of  Space.— How  it  appears  in  the 
Syriac — the  Arabic — the  Coptic. — Old  Testament  Use  of  Olam  for  World. 
— Ecclesiastes,  iii,  11. — Other  Passages. — Ecclesiastes,  i,  10. — Ancient  Idea 
of  Worlds  or  Cycles  Repeated.— 2  Peter,  iii,  13.— Habakkuk,  iii,  6.— "Hilla 
of  Olam."— The  "Everlasting  Ways  or  On-goings  of  the  World."— Psalms, 
cxlv,  13,  "The  Kingdom  of  all  Worids."— Isaiah,  xlv,  17,  "The  Everiast- 
ing  Salvation." — Isaiah,  Ivii,  15,  "  He  who  Inhabits  Eternity." — A  pi-iori 
Deduction  of  the  Idea.— The  Idea  of  Time- Worlds  Older  than  the  Enlarge- 
ment of  the  Space  Conception. — It  goes  Back  in  the  Past  and  Forward  in 
the  Future.— What  Effect  this  should  have  upon  our  Interpretations.— Slow  «  -  ^ 
March  of  Ages  in  the  Moral  World oOJi 


XII  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

OLDEST  tlVINE  NAMES  IN   GENESIS,  EL  OLAM,  EL  SHADDAI, 

EL    ELIOUN.       OXnER    HEBREW   WORDS    OF    DURATION. 
The  Divine  Names  in  Genesis  Connected  witli  the  Three  Aspects  of  the 
World. — Space,  Time,  Degree. — Power,  Providence,  Glory. — Primitive 
Simplicity  Favorable  to  Devout  Elevation  of  Thona:ht.— Other  Hebrew 
Words  of  Time.— Heled. — Toleda  or^Race.— Doror  Generation. — Ancient   nnn 
Cyclical  Ideas. — Aristotle  and  St.  James OOD 

CHAPTER  XXI K. 

HEBREW    IDEAS    OF    NATURAL    LAW. 

Idea  of  Law  in  the  Old  Testament. — Illustrations  from  Job,  the  Psalms,  and 
the  Prophets. — Supposed  Ignorance  of  Bible  Writers. — The  '"Foundations 
of  the  Earth.'" — The  Poetical  as  Distinguished  fi-om  the  Phenomenal  Style. 
— Comparison  of  the  Mosaic  Account  with  Job,  xxxviii,  and  its  Sublime   ohf: 
luterrogatories. — Has  Science  yet  answered  them oJo 


CHAPTER  I. 


INTRODUCTION. 


LEADING   DESIGN   AND    LEADING   IDEAS. 

The  Leading  Design  of  the  following  work  is  to  set  forth 
the  Bibhcal  Idea  of  Creation,  philologicallj  ascertained, 
or  "  Creation  as  JRevealed,''^  in  distinction  from  any 
scientific  or  inductive  theory  of  the  Earth.  It  is  impos- 
sible altogether  to  divest  the  mind  of  associations  and 
suggestions  coming  from  the  latter  source  ;  neither  would 
a  fair  interpretation  require  such  an  ignoring  of  modern 
discoveries,  whether  'real  or  pretended.  The  writer, 
however,  can  truly  sa}^,  that  every  effort  has  been  made 
to  prevent  the  mind  being  warped  into  a  forced  interpre- 
tation by  the  influence  of  any  such  outside  ideas.  In 
such  an  effort,  it  is  possible  he  may  have  gone,  or  tended 
at  least,  to  the  other  extreme,  and  sometimes  excluded 
scientific  suggestions  where  they  were  fairly  entitled  to 
consideration,  in  detcrmininsi;  the  true  meanino;  of  this  most 
mysterious  account  of  the  world's  origin.  But  we  must 
have  an  honest  faith,  or  none  at  all.  It.  is  a  wretched 
self-deception,  when  wo  fancy  we  have  a  behef  grounded 
on  the  Scriptures,  Avhich  after  ajl  rests  for  its  main  sup- 
port on  Bucldand,  or  Lyell,  or  Hugh  Miller.  The  thought 
ever  present  to  the  writer's  mind,  has  been  —  what  do 
the  iScriptures  teach  us  of  Creation  ?  Such  teaching  is  for 

1 


2  INTRODUCTION. 

him  as  a  believer  the  unquestionable  reality,  never  to  be 
surrendered  but  -with  Revelation  itself,  and  that  whole 
vast  field  of  .moral  and  religious  truth  so  intimately  con- 
nected with  its  literal  verity.  Until  he  is  prepared  to 
make  this  sacrifice,  he  must  hold  that  the  record  in  Ge- 
nesis is  a  true  account  of  the  matters  and  facts  therein 
set  forth.  He  would  say,  too,  that  there  are  no  philo- 
logical views  that  he  would  not  in  a  moment  surrender, 
if  he  could  feel  that  they  led  to  a  forced  and  unnatural 
interpretation.  K  the  twenty-four  hour  hypothesis  is 
the  one,  and  the  only  one,  that  comes  from  a  faithful  and 
exact  exegesis  of  the  Sacred  Words,  he  must  accept  it 
in  spite  of  any  difficulties  of  science  ;  he  must  believe, — 
as  faith  is  often  required  to  do,  —  against  appearances 
however  striking,  or  reasonings  however  plausible.  And 
he  would  not  be  irrational  in  so  doing.  The  one  class  of 
truths  is  so  immensely  above  the  other — the  consequen- 
ces of  the  rejection  of  the  one,  or  of  any  view  that  sheds 
darkness  upon  tlicm,  are  so  much  more  momentous,  that 
we  cannot  think  of  their  being  placed  in  one  balance,  or 
treated  as  of  equal  authority.  We  can  get  along  very 
well  without  geology  ;  our  intellectual  and  moral  dignity 
would  not  have  been  impaired  had  no  such  science  ever 
existed.  But  w^here  are  we  without  Revelation ;  and 
where  is  Revelation,  if  the  very  initial  record  of  Man, 
and  of  the  Earth,  turns  out  to  be  all  false,  a  lying  legend 
— a  work  of  fancy,  or  of  designed  deception  ? 

Whatever,  therefore,  the  Scriptures  teach,  whatever  h 
the  fair  meaning  of  those  ancient  writings  to  which  Jesus 
the  Light — the  only  Light  of  the  world — gave  the  sanc- 
tion of  his  authority,  that  is,  for  us  as  believers,  the  truth 
wherever  it  may  lead  us.     "  The  grass  unifier eih,  the 


LEADING   DESIGN   AND    LEADING   IDEAS.  8 

Hower  fadeth^''  —  nature  comes  and  goes,  her  laws  are 
ever  presenting  new  aspects,  science  is  ever  changing  its 
theories  and  its  language,  its  most  plausible  inductions 
have  been  often  shown  to  be  false — '^  hut  the  Word  of  our 
God  shall  stand  forever. ^^  It  is  the  record  of  salvation, 
with  which  we  cannot  dispense  w^ithout  lying  down  like 
animals  in  the  dust,  and  confessing  that  our  highest  good 
is  sensuality,  our  highest  knowledge  the  profitless  study 
of  a  mere  material  nature  —  of  an  ever  changing,  ever 
perishing  world,  whose  beginning  is  in  a  cloud  which 
no  science  can  hope  to  penetrate,  over  whose  end  hangs 
thick  darkness,  and  whose  design — moral  or  physical — 
is  an  enigma  which  has  baffled,  and  must  forever  baffle, 
all  earthly  or  merely  human  philosophy. 

It  is  several  years  since  the  writer  sat  down  to  study 
this  question  solely  from  the  light  of  the  Divine  Word, 
determined  that  no  geological  considerations,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  no  irrational  independence  of  science,  on  the 
other,  should  deflect  his  enquiries  from  their  true  exege- 
tical  course.  In  a  very  early  stage  of  the  investigation 
he  became  persuaded  that  we  are  in  danger  of  putting 
modern  notions  on  very  ancient  language,  and  that  the 
idea  of  vast  indefinite  periods  was  most  in  accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  The  result 
has  been  most  satisfactory  to  his  own  mind,  and  he  Avishes, 
therefore,  to  present  it  to  the  reader  with  the  hope  that 
it  may  be  productive  of  the  same  conviction. 

Such  is  the  Leading  Design.  The  Leading  Ideas 
may  be  briefly  presented  in  the  following  epitome : 

1st.  (Revelation  is  independent  of  science./  It  reveals 
natural  as  well  as  moral  truth,  ])ut  in  a  manner  and  by 
a  method  peculiar  to  itself.     Its  object  is  not  to  state  or 


4  INTPtODUCTIOX. 

endorso  any  scientific  theoiy.  Sucli  endorsement  a  true 
Revelation  from  its  very  nature  can  never  give,  for  the 
very  conclusive  reason  that  no  inductive  theory  ever  has 
been,  or  probably  ever  vv'ill  be,  so  absolutely  perfect,  or 
free  from  error,  as  to  need  no  amendment. 

2d.  ^Revelation,  therefore,  uses  its  own  language^ 
This  is  not  the  scientific,  or  the  language  of  natural 
causality,  as  it  is  employed  to  set  forth  the  relations  of 
cause  and  effect  in  their  mediate  dependencies.  It  is 
not  the  philosophical,  or  the  language  through  which 
there  are  supposed  to  be  exhibited  the  reason,  the  neces- 
sity, or  the  occasions  of  the  creative  energy,  irrespective 
of  its  particular  sequences.  It  is  not  the  metaphysical, 
liealing  alone  with  ideas,  laws  and  forces  regarded  from 
a  higher  plane  than  the  natural.  It  is  not  the  poetical, 
except  as  used  for  occasional  illustration,  and  in  connec- 
tions in  which  the  marks  of  the  poetic  character  are  not 
<3asily  mistaken.  In  distinction  from  all  these,  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Bible,  in  setting  forth  the  creative  acts,  or 
other  natural  or  cosmical  truths,  is  stnctlj  2yJie7iomenal^ 
that  is,  it  takes  as  representative  of  the  remote  energy 
' — remote  either  in  time,  or  causal  sequence,  or  both  — 
those  last  phenomena  or  ajjj^earances  through  which 
these  remote  energies  finally  manifest  themselves  directly 
to  the  senses,  aud  which  are,  therefore,  the  same  for  all 
ages  and  all  men  —  never  varying  like  the  language  of 
science  or  philosophy,  but  as  uniform  and  unchanging  as 
God  has  m^ade  the  laws  of  the  human  senses  to  which 
they  are  addressed.  These  ultimate  appearances  or 
''t7ie  things  tJtat  are  seen,^^  thus  furnish  the  name  to  the 
unseen  ultimate  causality,  or  the  remote  creative  energy 
they  represent  as  its  last  outward  result.     Thus,  in  phe- 


LEADING   DESIGN   AND   LEADING   IDEAS.  5 

nomenal  language,  to  make  the  firmament^  is  to  bring 
into  being,  and  into  action,  that  system  or  series  ot 
yliy%ical  law,  or  laws,  which  terminates  in  the  manifesta- 
tion so  named,  and  so  also  used  as  the  common  phenome- 
nal name  of  its  causality,  however  much  or  however 
little  of  that  causaHty  may  be  scientifically  known  in  its 
chain  of  sequences. 

3d.  Although  it  is  not  the  aim  of  the  work  to  recon- 
cile revelation  with  science,  or  with  any  scientific  lan- 
guage, still,  on  the  other  hand,  and  in  opposition  to-  a 
very  common  view,  is  it  maintained  that(the  Bible  may 
be,  in  some  respects,  designed  to  teach  us  natural  and 
not  merely  moral  truth.)  The  Scripture  professes  to 
reveal  those  great  facts  in  the  natural  and  supernatural 
liistory  of  our  world  that  are  most  intimately  connected 
with  our  moral  destiny,  and  which  are  of  such  a  kind 
that,  without  Revelation,  man  could  never  know  them  at 
all.  And  yet  in  doing  this,  it  never  pretends  to  give 
the  science  or  philosophy  of  such  facts.  In  other  words, 
—  the  Bible,  rightly  interpreted,  and  its  meaning  fairly 
ascertained,  is  of  authority  in  whatever  it  professes  to 
teach  us  of  the  natm'al  w^orld,  whenever  that  teaching  is 
direct,  or  where  it  is  the  maui  truth  conveyed  in  the 
passage,  and  cannot  be  regarded  as  subordinate  to  some- 
thing else,  either  by  way  of  impression  or  illustration. 

4th.  Creation  is  an  alternating  series  of  growths  or  (^  ^, 
natures — both  words  meaning  the  same  thing,  and  enter-  ( 
ing  radically,  or  in  their  etymological  conception,  into  the 
main  terms  employed  in  the  early  languages  to  denote 
origin,  or  the  genesis  of  actual  being.  These  growths, 
or  natures,  have  each  a  supernatural  beginning,  without 
which  the  first  could  never  have  commenced,  or  the 

1* 


6  INTRODUCTION. 

second  have  ever  developed  the  third,  or,  in  general, 
any  previous  one  could  ever,  by  any  law  given  to  it, 
have  risen  above  a  fixed  maximum,  although  without 
such  divine  interposition,  it  might,  and  would,  in  time, 
degenerate,  or  fall  below  its  original  measure.  These 
supernatural  beginnings,  followed  by  natural  growths, 
constitute  the  chronological  periods  of  the  divuie  work- 
ing, of  which  there  are  six  mentioned  by  Moses  as 
having  a  direct  relation  to  the  birth  or  genesis  of  our 
own  world,  in  its  present  formation. 

5th.  These  creative  periods  are  indefinite,  or  of  a 
duration  not  measurable  by  any  subordinate  divisions  of 
time  derived  from  the  present  settled  constitution  of 
things.  They  are  called  days  for  three  reasons  :  1st. 
Because  this  is  the  best  language  the  Hebrew  or  any 
other  ancient  tongue  could  furnish — any  other  word  by 
which  we  should  attempt  to  denote  period  or  cycle  being 
resolvable  ultimately  into  the  same  idea  that  lies  at  the 
root  of  this  first  and  simplest  term  of  revolution :  2d. 
Because  of  its  cyclical  or  periodical  character :  and,  od. 
Because  this  periodical  character  is  marked  by  two  con- 
trasted states  which  could  not  be  so  well  expressed  in  any 
way  as  by  those  images  that  in  all  the  early  tongues 
enter  into  the  terms  for  evening  and  morning. 
.  6th.  This,  it  is  contended,  is  not  mere  fanciful  con- 
jecture, or  a  philological  resort  to  escape  a  difficulty  of 
science,  but  is  forced  upon  us  by  considerations  which  lie 
upon  the  very  face  of  the  account,  especially  in  the 
description  of  the  first  four  periods  which  preceded  the 
regular  division  of  days  by  the  sun.  By  representing 
'them  as  ante-solar,  the  writer,  whatever  may  have  been 
his  science,  gives  us  a  clear  intimation  that  the  days  of 


LEADING   DESIGN   AND    LEADING   IDEAS.  7 

which  he  is  speaking  are  not  the  common  diurnal  revolu- 
tions measured  by  the  rismg  and  setting  of  the  heavenly 
bodies.  It  is  certainly  not  the  commmi  day  in  its  more 
essential  as  well  as  striking  characteristic  of  the  solar 
division.  There  is,  therefore,  much  more  reason,  and  .i 
more  consistent  license  in  regarding  it  as  not  a  common 
day  in  the  less  essential  and  less  striking  characteristic 
of  a  twenty-four  hours  duration.  The  reader's  attention 
is  specially  requested  to  this  part  of  the  argument,  and 
the  philological  investigations  connected  with  it.  The 
days  were  anomalous  ;  the  first  night  was  utterly  indefi- 
nite ;  the  first  morning,  at  least,  was  unlike  any  that  is 
now  made  by  the  sun.  This  admitted,  —  and  it  is  forced 
upon  us  by  the  whole  aspect  of  the  account,  —  the  whole 
narration  is  anomalous,  and  a  sufficient  intimation  is 
given  that  the  times  and  periods  are  to  be  interpreted 
in  consistent  analogy  with  the  extraordinary  acts.  In 
other  words,  the  extraordinary  in  duration^  as  well  as  in 
other  aspects  of  these  wondrous  days,  is  rather  to  be 
expected  a'  priori  than  regarded  as  a  forced  resort  to 
avoid  a  scientific  difiiculty. 

7th.  The  key-note,  or  the  suggestive  thought  that 
pervades  the  whole  argument,  comes  from  the  distinc- 
tion which  is  believed  to  exist,  between  the  language  of 
Paul,  Hebrews  xi.  3,  and  that  of  the  Mosaic  account  in 
(xenesis  ;  —  the  one  referring  to  the  essential,  the  other 
to  the  |j>7ie?w»ie?iaZ,  —  the  one  addressed  to  the  faith 
apprehending  directly,  without  sense  and  witliout  induc- 
tion, the  invisible  divine  powers  or  the  unseen  forces 
from  which  are  made  the  things  that  are  seen,  the  other 
addressed  to  the  sense,  or  rather  to  the  faith  through 
the  sense,  and  making  use  of  the  things  that  are  seen 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

as  the  names  or  representatives  of  the  primal  invisible 
entities  that  are  not  only  far  removed  from  the  senses, 
but  awaj  back  of  science  itself  and  its  most  interior  dis- 
coveries,—  ab  omni  scientia,  tum  sensus  tum  mentis  cum 
ratione  cognitionis,  quam  longissime  remota. 

8th.  An  important  aid  in  interpreting  the  days  in 
Genesis,  or  the  creative  times,  is  derived  from  a  right 
\dew  of  the  Hebrew  olam^  and  the  Greek  alwv,  as  they 
so  frequently  occur  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  A 
chapter  is  devoted  to  their  thorough  examination.  These 
terms  show  that  there  existed  in  the  earliest  use  of  lan- 
guage, a  conception  of  durations  transcending  any  of  the 
ordinary  divisions  of  time  as  measured  by  the  heavenly 
phenomena.  They  indicate  a  view  of  the  universe  as 
extending  indefinitely  back  and  forward  in  time,  how- 
ever limited  may  have  been  the  knowledge  or  notion  of 
its  magnitude  in  space.  The  manner  in  which  they  are 
often  employed  suggests  the  idea  of  immense  ages  in 
the  past  as  well  as  in  the  future,  and  that,  too,  not  as 
mere  blank  conceptions  of  the  mind,  but  as  being  as  much 
a  part  of  God's  eternal  kingdom  as  our  own  secular 
period  or  world-duration.  Hence  the  present  world,  too, 
is  called  an  olani,  or  seen,  regarded  as  one  of  the  series 
among  these  mighty  epochs,  and  as  measured  by  its  out- 
^v^ard  relation  to  them,  instead  of  the  subdivisions  of  time 
that  fall  within  its  temporal  limits.  From  this  Hebrew 
notion  of  olam  comes,  in  the  New  Testament,  the  common, 
yet  remarkable,  use  of  aV^.v  (gevum)  as  a  name  even  for 
the  material  world  viewed  in  its  time  instead  of  its  space 
aspect,  or  as  chronological  instead  of  extended  being, — 
ft  usage  of  the  word  which  is  never  met  with  in  classical 
Greek.     Hence  in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  i.  2,  and 


COLLATERAL   TOPICS.  U 

xi.  3,  as  well  as  in  other  passages,  the  very  objects  of  the 
creative  acts  are  thus  set  forth  hj  words  of  duration — 
'* Bi/  ivlioiu  aho  he  made  the  icorlds,^^  to'-s  a)C^vo'.g — the 
roons,  the  ages,  as  denoting  a  higher  a323ect  of  the  Avork 
and  more  truly  the  essence  of  its  result  than  any  words 
of  space.  This  Hebrew  conception  of  olams,  or  of  worlds 
under  that  name,  is  in  striking  contrast  with  the  modern 
notion  that  live  or  six  thousand-  years  carries  us  back, 
not  only  to  the  beginning  of  the  human  race,  but  to  the 
absolute  beginning  of  all  created  substance  with  nothing 
before  it — if  we  except  the  solitary  divine  existence  — 
but  an  eternal  blank. 

The  views  here  brought  out  may  strike  some  readers 
as  new,  and  the  writer  might  be  tempted  to  make  a 
claim  for  them  of  originality.  This,  however,  he  would 
regard  as  rather  an  equivocal  merit  in  the  interpretation 
of  the  Bible.  It  is  hoped  that  they  will  commend  them- 
selves more  by  their  philological  correctness,  and  by  their 
sober  analogy  with  the  whole  spirit  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures. 

Among  Collateral  Topics  the  following  may  be  men- 
tioned as  most  worthy  of  introductory  notice  : 

1st.  The  institution  of  the  solar  Sahhath  as  a  stand- 
ing memorial  of  the  termination  of  the  creative  ivork^  or 
that  Great  Rest  of  God  which  commenced  in  the  evening, 
at  the  close  of  the  sixth  day,  and  yet  continues  uninter- 
rupted and  unbroken.  The  Sabbatical  institution  is 
thought  to  furnish  an  argument  against  the  doctrine  o: 
indefinite  days.  It  is  maintained,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  there  is  a  sublime  fitness  in  the  less  being  thus  made 
the  type  or  memorial  of  the  greater,  the  transient  of  the 


10  INTRODUCTION". 

permanent,  and  the  diurnal  of  the  olamic  or  ceonian 
periods.  It  is  thus  in  analogy  ^vidi  the  general  spirit  of 
the  Hebrew  typical  institutions,  and  especially  as  mani- 
fested in  the  -widening  and  ascending  series  of  Jewisli 
hebdomads. 

2d.  The  question,  whether  the  first  vegetahle  and  ani- 
mal productions  were  made  i^crfect^  or  grew  from  a 
seed;  and  whether  the  seed  itself  was  created  in  its 
finished  material  form,  or  came  from  a  seminal  force,  or 
principle,  divinely  originated,  and  then  developed  by  the 
already  existing  nature  of  the  previous  period.  The 
language  of  Scripture  is  here  carefully  examined,  and 
special  attention  is  given  to  the  enquiries  —  What  is 
meant  when  it  is  said  "  God  created  the  plant  before  it 
was  in  the  earth?"  —  Can  there  be  a  real  creation  of  a 
force  or  principle,  antecedent  to,  and  independent  of,  the 
material  form  in  which  it  is  to  be  manifested  to  the 
senses  ?  In  other  words,  what  is  meant,  or  is  anything 
meant,  when  we  say  with  Plato,  that  "  God  is  the  maker 
or  architect  of  laics  and  ideas. 

3d.  The  cyclical  law  of  nature,  or  the  nature  of  all 
natures,  great  or  small  —  the  flower,  the  tree,  the  world, 
the  individual,  the  species,  the  genus,  —  or  that  law  of 
maxima  and  minima,  of  growth  and  decay,  which  makes 
it  impossible  that  there  should  be  anj^  uninterrupted  or 
unlimited  progress  in  nature  without  a  continual  series 
of  supernatural  interpositions,  originating  higher  and 
higher  stages  —  thus  causing  the  creative  ongoings  to 
consist  of  periods  with  their  contrasted  morning  and  eve- 
ning, their  torpid  and  energising,  their  quiescent  and 
reviving  states. 


COLLATERAL   TOPICS.  11 

4th.  The  Physical  Origm  of  Man,  and  what  is  meant 
hj  his  being  formed  from  the  dust  of  the  earth. 

5th.  The  manner  in  which  the  Mosaic  account  appears 
in  the  Greek  cosmogonies. 

6th.  The  Hebrew  Idea  of  the  great  antiquity  of  the 
world,  as  shown  by  a  particular  examination  of  Proverbs 
viii,  22-32,  together  with  parallel  passages  in  Job  and 
the  Psalms. 

7th.  The  Hebrew  or  Bible  Ideas  of  Law  and  Nature. 

8th.  The  Poetical  Language  of  the  Bible  and  the  dif- 
ference between  it  and  what  may  be  called  the  narrative 
phenomenal  style,  as  illustrated  by  a  comparison  of 
Genesis  i,  with  the  thirty-eighth  chapter  of  Job. 

It  may  be  remarked  generally  in  conclusion,  that  as 
the  writer  has  aimed  to  be  wholly  philological  in  the 
examination  of  these  great  questions,  he  has  not  been 
much  concerned  with,  or  anxious  about,  the  enquiry, 
whether  the  results  at  which  he  has  arrived  would 
square  with  any  geological  theory  or  not.  There  may 
be  a  general  or  a  partial  harmony.  The  great  suc- 
ceeding periods  of  light,  atmosphere,  separation  of  land 
and  water,  vegetable,  animal,  and  rational  life,  may  cor- 
respond in  their  general  outlines  to  what  science  is  sup- 
posed to  teach,  whilst,  as  far  as  her  very  defective  evi- 
dence goes,  there  may  be  an  apparent  overlapping  in  the 
minor  details  or  filling  up  of  the  great  scheme.  If  our 
earth  is  a  groivth^  oj^Vj^c,  natiira^  /svsirjr,  toleda,  or  (/ene- 
ration,  —  the  Greek,  Latin,  Anglo-Saxon,  and  Hebrew 
words,  meaning  radically  the  same  thing — then  the 
mind  could  almost  determine  a'  priori,  from  general 
analogy,  that  it  would  be  by  ascending  steps  from  the 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

lower  degrees  of  organic  existence  to  the  higher  orders 
of  life ;  and  that  notwithstanding  some  appearances  of 
intermingling,  such  would  be  the  general  chronological 
outhne.  Hence,  too  we  might  expect  that  the  number 
of  the  great  creative  acts,  each  with  its  tvfo  contrasted 
times,  its  supernatural  aivaJcening  and  its  sequence  of 
natural  repose^  or,  in  short,  order  of  succession,  instead 
of  extent  of  duration,  would  constitute  the  essential  fea- 
ture of  the  facts  revealed. 

The  chief,  and  as  we  think  the  strong  position  is,  that 
the  Bible  does  not  teach  that  the  creative  da3's  v.'ere 
twenty-four  hours  long ;  but  leaves  a  great  latitude  in 
this  respect,  determining  nothing  about  their  duration, 
except  that  they  must  be  in  some  kind  of  conceived  har- 
mony with  the  grovfths  and  processes  assigned  to  each. 
Hence  this  view  of  indefinite  periods  may  be  applied  in 
various  ways.  It  may  be  supposed  to  embrace  the  whole 
physical  history  of  our  earth  from  its  earliest  condition  of 
being,  or  it  may  refer  merely  to  the  successive  steps  by 
which  an  old  chaotic  earth  was  renewed,  and  a  nevr  divi- 
sion of  land  and  wnter,  a  new  vegetation,  a  new  animal 
life,  etc.,  were  made  to  succeed  older  growths  and  older 
creations,  which  had  long  before  run  through  their 
cycles.  The  writer  would  confess  his  partiahty  for  the 
first  supposition,  as  the  second  burdens  the  conceptive 
faculty  with  the  idea  of  a  series  of  great  creations,  as 
well  as  of  great  periods  in  each  creation  :  but  on  cither 
view  there  is  no  need  to  disjoin  the  introductory  verse  in 
the  first  of  Genesis  from  the  rest,  or  to  suppose  any 
disconnected  interval  between  them.  There  is.  how- 
ever, nothing  in  a  sound  philology  that  would  interfere 
with  such  a  view  if  any  choose  to  entertain  it. 


CHAPTER  II. 


BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION. 

Is  THE  Bible  to  be  interpreted  as  other  books  ? — What  is  it  designed 
TO  teach? — Style  of  the  Mosaic  account  of  Creation.  _^ 

The  Bible,  it  is  often  said,  must  be  interpreted  on  the 
^^ame  principles  that  we  apply  to  other  books.  The  pro- 
position doubtless  contains  a  truth,  and  yet  great  care  is 
required  in  its  application,  or  we  shall  violate  the  very 
canon  we  profess  to  employ.  We  do  not  interpret  the 
Bible  as  we  would  other  books,  unless  we  keep  in  view 
those  very  peculiarities  in  which  it  differs  from  other 
books, — unless  we  are  affected,  and  greatly  affected,  by 
what  we  beheve  in  respect  to  its  author,  its  subject,  and 
its  end.  We  judge,  indeed,  of  the  style  by  what  is  appa- 
rent on  the  face.  There  are  certain  principles  by  which 
\\Q  determine  what  is  poetical,  what  is  plain  narrative, 
what  is  rhetorical,  what  is  argumentative,  what  is  allego- 
rical, what  is  mythical ;  but  in  doing  so  we  must  draw 
out  conclusions  from  the  record  itself.  We  have  no  right 
to  turn  plain  prose  into  poetry,  or  poetry  into  prose,  oi 
sober  narrative  into  myth,  or  a  parable  into  a  mystical 
allegory,  just  to  remove  some  real  or  fancied  difficulty 
arising  from  extrinsic  considerations.  So  far  the  rule 
holds  good  of  the  Bible  as  of  other  books ;  and  yet 
who  could  deny  that  the  mere  thought  of  God  being  its 
author,  human  destiny  its  subject,  and  salvation  its  end^ 

2 


14  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION. 

must  greatlj  modify  our  conceptions  not  only  of  the  Im- 
portance, but  of  the  very  meaning  of  what  it  reveals. 

In  this  sense  we  cannot  interpret  a  book  of  which  we 
believe  God  to  be  the  author,  as  we  would  interpret 
Shakspeare,  Byron,  or  Homer.  A  similar  remark  may 
be  made  in  respect  to  the  subject  and  design.  In  the 
case  of  other  books,  this  may  often  be  known  from  with- 
out ;  the  design  of  the  Bible  can  only  be  determined 
from  itself.  How  often  do  we  hear  it  laid  down,  with  an 
assurance  that  seems  to  admit  of  no  doubt,  that  the 
Scriptures  were  not  given  to  teach  us  this,  or  that  ?  They 
were  intended,  it  is  said,  to  inculcate  religion  and  mo- 
rality, and  we  must  not,  therefore,  look  into  them  for  any 
satisfaction  in  respect  to  the  kingdom  of  nature.  The 
boundaries  of  religion  and  morality,  too,  are  narrowed  or 
enlarged,  so  as  to  include  or  exclude  just  what  such  a 
declaimer  would  find  convenient  or  inconvenient  for  his 
hypothesis.  Now,  without  saying  anything  on  the  im- 
mense difficulty  of  making  the  distinction  which  some 
regard  as  so  easy,  or  of  drawing  the  fair  line  between 
the  moral  and  the  physical,  the  philosophical  and  the 
religious, — without  dwelling  on  the  absurdities  into  which 
many  have  run  in  attempting  to  dra^v  this  line,  and  the 
arbitrary  manner  in  which  the}^  would  place  a  prmciple 
on  this  side  or  that,  according  to  their  ovvn  fancy, — 
without  showing  here,  as  it  might  be  shown,  that  some  of 
the  gravest  moral  truths  have  a  physical  root,  or  rather 
a  physical  ground,  and  that  the  highest  natural  truths 
have  inseparable  moral  affinities,  as  is  so  fully  exempli- 
fied in  the  great  question  of  the  unity  of  the  race  in  its 
connection  with  the  doctrines  of  the /(if Z/,  of  the  incarna- 
tion^ and  the  redemption, — without  dwelling  here  on  any 


BIBLICAL   IXTERPRETATIOX.  16 

of  these  points,  it  is  sufficient  to  say,  that  even  -when 
judged  by  those  ordinary  rules  of  hermeneutics  to  which 
the  appeal  is  made,  this  boasted  canon  of  the  modem 
lecturer  is  nothing  but  sheer  impertinence,  a  violation  of 
all  logic,  and  of  all  sound  rhetoric  too,  in  so  complacently 
taking  for  granted  the  very  matter  to  be  investigated. 

What  is  the  Bible  designed  to  teach  us  ?  Just  tvliat  it 
does  teach  us,  is  the  simple,  yet  only  rational  answer, — 
unless  we  have  some  extrinsic  evidence,  (and  this,  of 
course,  could  be  nothing  else  than  some  other  assumed 
revelation,)  informing  us  more  expressly  what  that  design 
is,  and  pointing  out  to  us  what  parts  may  be  rejected,  or 
modified,  or  referred  to  some  lower  collateral  purpose, 
without  aflfecting  or  changing  the  great  object. 

Assuming  for  our  readers  that  the  first  chapters  of 
Genesis  are  divine  Scripture,  the  question  arises — Did 
its  Divme  Author  intend  by  it  to  give  some  instruction, 
be  it  more  or  less  limited,  in  respect  to  the  fact  and  man- 
ner of  the  origin  of  our  earth  ?  Was  it  meant  to  teach  us 
its  direct  and  sudden  formation,  or  its  gradual  growth 
into  its  present  state,  or  the  combination  of  both  kinds 
of  causality  in  producing  the  grand  result  ?  Was  it  in- 
tended for  any  reasons,  whether  we  can  discover  them 
or  not,  to  give  us  a  lesson  in  respect  to  the  natural  as 
well  as  the  moral  world  ?  Now,  we  can  only  determine 
this  from  the  record  itself.  What  does  it  teach  ?  That 
ascertained,  we  have  just  what  it  was  designed  to  teach. 
But  in  getting  at  it,  we  must,  of  course,  use  all  the  laws 
of  interpretation,  ordinary  or  extraordinary,  which  the 
case  demands.  We  must  not  suffer  any  outward  diffi- 
culties, which  modern  science  may  have  suggested,  to 
deflect  us  from  the  fair  meaning,  or  refract  its  direct 


16  BIBLICAL   INTEIIPIIETATIOX. 

light ;  and  yet  we  must  allow  those  difficulties  their  full 
and  proper  effect  in  causing  us  to  examine  more  carefully 
whether  some  other  prepossessions,  scientific  or  unscien- 
tific, may  not  have  drawn  us  as  much  away  into  errors 
lying  in  a  different  or  even  opposite  direction.  May  it 
not  be  that  we  are  judging  a  record  made  for  all  ages, 
by  certain  scholastic  notions  of  comparatively  modern 
centuries, — notions  which,  although  at  their  first  intro- 
duction lying  as  much  out  of  the  common  track  as  those 
scientific  views  that  now  arouse  our  jealousy,  have 
become,  in  time,  so  much  the  property  of  the  common 
mind  as  to  make  it  now  very  difficult  for  us  to  think,  or 
reason,  or  interpret  language  out  of  them.  We  had 
better  lock  up  our  Bibles  at  once,  than  be  haunted  with 
the  uneasy  and  tormenting  conviction  that  our  belief  is 
the  untenable  result  of  any  forced  or  compromising 
accommodation.  And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  we  must 
not  be  too  certain  that  our  prima  facie  impressions  are 
the  only  ones  that  will  bear  the  test  of  close  examination. 
Our  ideas  of  sudden  creations  out  of  nothing,  whether 
true  or  false,  would  have  been  very  strange  to  many 
Gentile  Christians  of  the  first  centuries.  The  doctrine 
of  rapid  c?iusalities  crowded  into  brief  periods  measured 
by  our  common  hours,  would  have  been  more  out  of  their 
way  of  thinking,  and  even  of  interpreting  the  Scriptures, 
than  that  of  instantaneous  production  from  pre\aous  non- 
entity;  it  would  have  seemed  to  them  neither  nature,  nor 
miracle,  nor  a  credible  combination  of  both.  The  very 
name  O-enesis,  given  in  the  Greek  version  of  the  Old 
Testament,  contains  the  conception  of  {/roivth,  of  genera- 
tion, of  the  hecoming  of  one  thing  from  another  through 
physical  forces  operating  through  certain  traceable  me- 


BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION.  17 

tliods  tliat  may  be  called  physical  laws,  and  is  not  only 
in  harmony  with,  but  would  demand  the  long  periods, 
which  geology  is  supposed  to  suggest.  In  proof  of  this, 
we  may  say  that  some  early  Christian  Fathers  embraced 
this  idea  of  the  indefinite  times,  as  the  true  and  most 
natural  interpretation,  ages  before  geology,  as  a  science, 
was  even  dreamed  of.  This  was  their  view  of  the  dies 
eternitatls,  as  they  are  called  by  some  one  of  them,  and 
which  is  the  most  literal  rendering  of  the  Hebrew  ex- 
pression, as  it  is  employed  by  the  Prophet  Micah,  v,  1,  to 
denote  the  "  outgoings^^  of  the  Logos,  or  The  Everlast- 
ing Creative  Wisdom, 

But  what  is  the  fair  meaning  of  the  record?  This 
ascertained  to  his  satisfaction,  the  Christian  believer  in 
revelation  can  have  no  farther  question.  This  ascer- 
tained, and  he  has  what  God  meant  to  teach,  and  which 
is  reverently  to  be  received  as  his  teaching,  whatever 
other  issues  science  or  philosophy  may  seem  to  present. 
We  need  not  dwell  on  the  propositions  now  become  so 
trite,  that  all  truth  must  be  consistent  with  other  truth 
—  that  is  only  saying  that  all  truth  must  be  true, —  or 
that  one  of  God's  books  must  not  contradict  the  other, — 
all  that  is  so,  of  course.  These  positions  which  once 
seemed  to  embody  so  much  wisdom,  are  now  too  stale  to 
be  either  formally  defended  or  opposed.  The  question 
still  remains,  and  a  very  important  one  it  is — Which 
book  is  of  the  most  value  to  us  ?  Which  book  most  needs 
the  aid  of  the  other  as  the  interpreter,  not  of  its  pheno- 
mena, but  of  its  ultimate  meaning  ?  Which  book  contains 
the  truths  with  which  we  can  least  dispense,  or  that 
have  the  most  important  bearing  upon  our  most  serious 
destiny  ?   Let  all  confidence  in  a  present  revelation  be 


18  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATIOK. 

destroyed,  and  with  it,  as  an  inevitable  consequence,  all 
hope  of  any  future  revelation  of  God  to  man,  and  how 
long  would  sciencQ  or  philosophy  continue  to  give  us  any 
moral  or  religious  light  ?  How  long  before  the  one  would 
become  but  '•  a  valley  of  dry  bones,"  and  the  other,  as 
it  has  always  been  in  itself  and  away  from  the  influence 
of  the  Bible,  a  terra  uynhrarum^  a  region  of  the  shadow 
of  death?  Of  course,  God's  books  will  not  contradict 
each  other ;  but  this  should  not  be  an  excuse  for  ever 
making  the  Bible  yield  to  anything  we  may  choose  to 
call  an  interpretation  of  nature.  In  place  of  these 
modern  truisms,  it  is  far  more  important  for  us  to  re- 
member a  saying  as  old  as  the  experience  of  mankind, 
that  truth  lies  beneath  the  surface,  —  a  surface  often  of 
apparently  perplexing  difficulties  down  through  which 
we  must  dig  as  for  hid  treasures,  whether  we  are  exam- 
ining the  strata  of  geology,  or  seeking  to  explore  the 
deposits  of  revealed  wisdom  amid  the  obscurities  insepar- 
able from  the  necessary  medium  through  which  they  are 
laid  open  to  the  human  mind. 

In  respect  to  this  account  in  Genesis,  we  cannot  re- 
solve it  into  poetry  or  mythus.  There  need  be  no  objection 
to  any  such  view  had  there  been  proof  on  the  face  of  the 
writing.  There  is  certainly  poetry  in  other  parts  of  the 
Bible,  and  the  opening  account  might  have  been  in  the 
same  style,  designed  like  all  other  poetry,  to  excite 
strong  emotion — to  impress  us  feelingly  with  the  thought 
of  the  wisdom  and  goodness  and  greatness  of  the  First 
Cause,  without  claiming  exact  credence  for  the  literal 
prosaic  truth  of  the  representations  employed  for  such 
an  emotional  purpose.  But  the  opening  narrative  of  the 
]5ible  ha>s  not  the  air  and  style  of  poetry,  although  the 


BIBLICAL   IXTERPRETATION".  19 

subsequent  Hebrew  poets  have  draAvn  largely  upon  this 
old  store  house  of  grand  conceptions,  and  thereby  thrown 
back  upon  it  something  of  a  poetical  tinge.  Neither  ia 
it  mythical  or  parabolical.  We  have  no  difficulty  in 
detecting  these  styles  in  the  Scriptures,  wherever  they 
may  occur.  When  we  meet  with  such  a  passage  as  this 
— "  The  trees  once  said  to  the  bramble,  rule  thou  over 
us,"  — or,  "  Thou  hast  brought  a  vine  out  of  Egypt  and 
planted  it,"  —  or,  ''My  beloved  had  a  vineyard  in  a 
very  fruitful  hill,"  —  or,  "A  sower  went  forth  to  sow, 
and  as  he  sowed  some  seed  fell  by  the  way-side"  —  we 
have  no  trouble  in  determining  its  character.  Every 
intelligent  reader,  whether  learned  in  the  original  lan- 
guages or  not,  says  at  once,  if  he  understands  the  terms, 
this  is  myth,  —  this  is  parable,  —  this  is  allegory,  —  this 
is  poetical  or  figurative  language.  We  fail  to  detect 
any  of  these  well-known  marks  of  style  in  the  account  of 
the  creation.  It  professes  to  narrate  the  order  of  facts, 
or  the  chronological  steps,  in  the  production  of  our  present 
earth.  It  is  found  in  scriptures  well  known  to  have 
existed  in  our  Saviour's  day, -— scriptures  v/ith  which 
He  Avas  familiar,  which  He  styled  holy,  and  to  which  He, 
the  Light  of  the  world,  appealed  as  of  divine,  and  there- 
fore, unerring  authority.  Whatever,  then,  be  its  fair 
meaning,  that  meaning,  we  say  again,  is  for  the  believer 
the  actual  truth,  the  actual  fact  or  facts,  the  actually 
intended  teaching ;  and  is  to  be  received  as  such  in 
spite  of  all  impertinent  distinctions  between  the  natural 
and  the  moral,  or  any  arbitrary  fancies  in  respect  to 
what  does  or  does  not  fall  within  the  design  of  a  divine 
revelation. 


CHAPTER  III 


PHENOMEJ^AL   LANGUAGE. 

FOUK  BISTINCTIONS,— THE   FACT,  THE   CONCEPTIOX,  THE  EMOTION,  THE   PHILOSO' 

PHY. — God  can  make  a  revelation  to  us  only  through  our  conceptions. 
— All  human  speech  phenomenal. — This  especially  true  of  the  earli- 
est languages. 

As  actual  fact,  we  have  said,  —  But  liere  come  in  dis- 
tinctions on  which  we  must  be  allowed  to  dwell  at  some 
length,  even  at  the  hazard  of  being  thought  to  indulge 
in  abstract  and  irrelevant  theorising,  or  in  what  may  seem 
to  some,  unnecessary  repetitions.  The  course  taken, 
however,  is  deemed  vital  to  the  whole  discussion.  The 
analysis  here  attempted  wiU  give  the  key  to  all  subsequent 
interpretations,  and  if  well  understood  by  the  reader, 
will,  it  is  hoped,  make  those  interpretations  not  only  easy 
but  convincing. 

We  commence  then  with  four  distinctions,  although 
they  may  be  afterwards  mainly  reduced  to  two.  Matter 
of  fact  is  one  thing;  the  conception,  or  mind's  image 
accompanying  that  fact,  and  which  may  be  taken  as  di- 
rectly representative  of  it,  is  another  thing  ;  the  emotion 
to  which  it  may  give  rise  is  a  third ;  and  the  philosophy 
or  science  of  that  fact  still  another  and  a  fourth  thing. 
There  might,  perhaps,  be  made  a  farther  distinction  be- 
tween the  science  and  the  philosophy  —  the  one  having 
respect  to  the  mutual  relations  of  the  phenomena  by  which 
the  fact  may  be  represented,  the  other  its  relations  to  the 
whole  of  being — but  the  above  is  sufficient  for  our  present 


PHENOMENAL    LANGUAGE.  21 

argument.  For  example — the  smi  rises.  The  fact  or 
ultimate  act,  which  the  phenomenon  or  appearance  repre- 
sents, is  the  same  for  the  ordinary  observer,  the  man 
of  science  and  the  poet.  But  the  second  has  a  philoso- 
phy of  the  matter  to  which  the  first  and  third  may  be 
strangers ;  the  third  has  an  emotion  of  vy'hich  the  others 
perhaps  know  little  or  nothing.  Now  both  the  philoso- 
phy and  the  appearance,  or  mode  of  conception,  be  it 
more  or  less  vivid,  will  affect  the  verbal  language  in 
which  the  fact  is  presented,  unless  the  philosopher  chooses 
for  the  sake  of  convenience  to  rest  in  the  common  lan- 
guage, although  correcting  for  himself  its  etj^nological 
conceptions,  and  the  poet  thinks  it  already  sufficiently 
possessed,  as  it  may  be,  of  the  figurative  element.  And 
this  to  some  extent  it  will  always  doubtless  have  ;  for  in 
reality  the  thought  of  the  fact,  as  a  fact,  is  never  wholly 
separate  from  some  true  or  false  scientific  view,  or  from 
some  emotion,  be  it  strong  or  feeble,  accompanying  the 
manner  in  which  such  fact  is  conceived,  or  represen- 
tatively imaged  to  the  mind. 

Now  this  conception,  or  mind's  image  of  the  fact,  in 
distinction  from  and  as  representative  of  the  fact  itself, 
is  what  language,  especially  early  or  primitive  language, 
ever  aims  to  express ;  and  if  God  reveals  facts  to  us,  or 
the  order  of  facts,  through  language,  it  is  no  irreverence 
to  say  that  he  employs  the  instrument  as  he  finds  it. 
We  can  imagine  no  other  way.  Even  were  the  revela- 
tion intuitional,  as  some  demand  it  should  be,  it  would 
still  be  only  by  awakening  in  the  soul,  v>'ithout  verbal  lan- 
guage, that  same  conceptional  image  which  had  given 
liirth  to  the  language.  For  language  is  a  medium  to  the 
soul  only  as  the  soul  hath  generated  it  either  by  its  ordi- 


22  PHENOMENAL   LANGUAGE. 

narj  powers,  or  as  quickened  by  an  early  divine  influ- 
ence operating  through  them  and  upon  them.  Thus  all 
thoughts,  all  feelings,  all  facts  have  gone  through  its 
imaging  process,  and  thus  alone  become  capable  of  any 
outward  representation.  Away  from  such  direct  or  re- 
flex images,  the  soul  could  not  read  her  own  intuitions, 
whether  regarded  as  innate  or  inspired ;  and  should 
there  be  in  either  way  (that  is  by  our  own  thinking  or  by 
insph-ation)  an  attempt  to  create  within  us  new  concep- 
tions, it  could  only  be  by  beginning  with  those  older 
ones  that  lie  nearest  the  direct  action  of  the  senses.  It 
will  be  borne  in  mind  that  we  are  now  speaking  of  phy- 
sical facts,  and  not  at  all  of  moral  truth.  Such  facts, 
in  their  ultimate  state  inefiable  and  inconceivable,  can 
only  come  to  us  as  represented  by  phenomena,  and  if 
God  would  talk  to  us  either  by  articulate  speech,  or 
through  emotions  and  conceptions  directly  inspired,  he 
must  come,  with  all  reverence  be  it  said,  where  we  are  ; 
unless  he  would  take  us  up  as  Paul  was  taken,  to  the  Third 
Heaven,  and  then  the  language  employed  would  be  not 
only  unintelligible  but  unutterable  in  the  world  below. 

Let  us  suppose  that  the  Deity  designed  to  reveal  to  a 
human  mind,  and  through  that  human  mind  to  other  hu- 
man minds,  that  on  a  certain  occasion  there  was  a  pre- 
ternatural lengthening  of  the  day.  The  phenomenon  or 
appearance  connected  with  the  physical  agency  or  su- 
pernatural act,  (whichever  it  was,)  and  representative  of 
such  act  or  agency,  is  that  of  the  sun's  standing  immov- 
able in  the  firmament.  This  is  that  appearance  to  the 
senses,  in  which  the  act  or  agency  terminates,  and  aside 
from  which  the  one  to  whom  it  is  revealed  cannot  conceive 
it.  It  stands  for  the  fact  and  is  in  this  sense  to  him,  the  Ian- 


PHENOMENAL  LANGUAGE.  23 

guage  of  the  fact,  just  as  the  articulate  descriptive  words 
represent,  or  are  to  other  minds  the  language  of,  the 
phenomenon  itself.  If  God  speaks  to  him  it  must  be 
in  his  own  language,  or  if  he  inspires  the  thought  of 
the  fact  in  his  mind,  it  must  be  through  his  own  modes 
of  conceiving.  Is  it  said  that  Deity  might  correct  the 
human  conceptions  of  phenomena  and  bring  them  nearer 
to  the  actual  truth  ?  Two  answers  at  once  suggest  them- 
selves :  One  is  that  it  would  be  useless,  as  the  great 
object  is  to  communicate  the  fact,  and  any  way  through 
which  that  is  done  sufl&ces.  Secondly,  any  new  language 
would  still  be  phenomenal,  and  any  new  phenomenal 
conception,  or  conceptions,  would  still  have  more  or  less 
of  that  disagreement  between  them  and  the  remote  phy- 
sical or  divine  agency  represented,  which,  it  could  be 
shown,  exists,  and  must  ever  exist,  even  in  our  most 
scientific  dialect. 

It  imght,  perhaps,  be  objected  that  this  is  simply  treat- 
ing the  account  as  poetical.  But  there  is  a  wide  differ- 
ence between  what  is  ordinarily  called  poetry,  (in  which 
the  design  is  to  connect  strong  emotion  with  the  concep- 
tion^') and  that  phenomenal  expression,  or  innate  sponta- 
neous metaphor  which  is  in  the  very  roots  of  language, 
and  is  employed  simply  to  create  a  vivid  thought  of  the 
fact  which  the  conception  represents.  This  important 
difference  we  hope  to  present  more  clearly  in  a  subse- 
quent examination  of  the  numerous  references  of  the 
Hebrew  poets  to  the  i\Iosaic  account  of  the  creation. 

We  might  say  that  all  human  speech  is  more  or  less 
phenomenal.  It  is  only  in  the  latest  or  worn  out  stages 
of  language  that  words  come  to  stand  for  thoughts,  or 
facts,  or  physical  agencies,  directly  without  this  middle 


24  PHENOMENAL   LANGUAaS. 

process  of  a  representative  conception, — just  as  x^y  and 
z  in  algebra  stand  directly  for  certain  abstract  quantities 
and  relations.  In  this  state  it  may,  in  some  respects,  be 
better  adapted  to  science, whose  symbols  are  the  more  con- 
renient  just  in  proportion  to  their  abstractedness  from  all 
sensible  conceptions ;  but  its  life  is  gone  ;  its  power  of 
creating  vivid  images  to  stand  as  representatives  of  the 
remoter  fact  or  truth,  no  longer  exists.  No  language  is 
wholly  in  such  a  condition  of  conceptional  barrenness, 
although  the  later  ones  are  ever  tending  towards  it  except 
so  far  as  they  are  recoined  from  time  to  time  by  being 
sent  to  the  etymological  mint,  or  preserved  fresh  and 
bright  by  those  writers  w^ho  happily  combine  philological 
accuracy  with  a  vivid  power  of  imagination.  Even  yet 
our  speech,  old  and  worn  out  as  it  is,  abounds  in  hidden 
metaphors.  We  cannot  well  talk  without  a  figure.  Even 
our  most  scientific  and  philosophical  vocabularies  are  full 
of  words,  which,  when  traced  to  their  roots,  present  some- 
thing pictorial,  some  sensible  image^  or  sensible  action, 
as  the  representative  basis  of  all  more  interior  thought. 
The  very  sentences  with  which  the  reader  is  now  occu- 
pied, abstract  as  they  may  seem,  contain  such  pictures 
in  almost  every  word.  We  acknowledge  their  existence 
more  readily  in  terms  that  have  come  to  us  from  the 
Greek  and  Latin  sources ;  but  a  careful  examination 
shows  that  even  those  Anglo-Saxon  words  whose  primi- 
tive images  are  in  a  great  measure  lost  from  common 
use,  present  the  same  phenomenal  character. 

But  we  need  not  dAvell  on  this.  What  is  mainly  had 
in  view  is  the  phenomenal  language  of  Scripture,  and 
here  our  formulas  have  their  strictest  application.  Let- 
ters, or  elements  of  speech,  represent  words  or  articulate 


PHENOMENAL   LANGUAGE.  25 

sounds; — articulate  sounds  represent  a  sensible  concep- 
tion or  mind's  image, — this  sensible  conception  repre- 
sents a  fact  or  facts,  either  near,  or  remote,  or  ultimate, 
standing  behind  it.  The  ultimate  fact  is  in  itself  ineffa- 
ble, because  inconceivable  under  any  of  the  forms  of 
sense.  The  various  conceptional  representations  of  it 
may  be  more  or  less  simple,  or  more  or  less  scientific, 
but  all  falling  short  of  that  unutterable  reahty  which  no 
language  can  by  any  other  means  express.  The  earliest 
conception,  although  the  most  vivid  and  therefore  the 
most  representative,  may  be  scientifically  the  most  erro- 
neous. And  yet  nothing  would  be  gained  by  substitut- 
ing other  words  and  other  images,  because  the  most  phi- 
losophical language,  when  examined  in  its  roots,  contains 
as  much  of  this  phenomenal  character  as  that  in  most 
ordinary  use.  Some  superficial  naturalist  might  make 
himself  merry  with  the  expressions, — the  sun  fails — or 
goes  out — or  faints  away, — and  yet,  it  may  be,  in  total 
ignorance  of  the  fact  that  his  own  scientific  word  eclipse 
does  phenomenally  and  etymologically  present  precisely 
that  conception.  Does  he  say  that  he  disregards  the 
etymology,  or  the  phenomenal  conception,  or  has  a  new 
phenomenal  conception  associated  with  the  word,  or  has 
in  his  mind  directly  (if  that  were  possible)  the  absolute 
fact  or  physical  agency,  without  any  representative  sen- 
sible image  ? — the  enlightened  reader  of  the  Scriptures 
can  say  the  same  thing.  He,  too,  may. thus  correct  his 
conceptions  if  he  deems  it  worth  while ;  or  he  may  go 
right  to  the  ultimate  fact  they  represent,  as  far  as  his 
science  may  have  shown  him  the  way.  Our  superficial 
naturalist  scofis  at  Joshua's  command  to  the  sun  to  stand 
still,  but  even  in  talking  about  it  he  is  using  language 

3 


26  PHENOMENAL  LANGUAGE. 

alike,  if  not  equally,  erroneous.  Should  he  resolve  to 
make  an  artificial  word,  that  should  have  no  phenomenal 
conceptions  associated  with  it,  or  standing  between  it  and 
the  ultimate  philosophical  fact,  he  would  not  be  able  to  find 
the  materials  of  such  a  word,  or  phrase,  in  any  dialect 
spoken  bj  man.  He  might  arbitrarily  employ  for  that  pur- 
pose some  articulate  sound,  but  it  would  not  be  strictly  lan- 
guage. An  essential  stage  in  the  process  that  consti- 
tutes language,  has  been  left  out,  and  thus  it  would  be 
only  a  scientific  symbol  of  the  same  character  with  the 
X,  y  and  z  of  the  algebraist.  Even  should  we  suppose 
it  to  represent  to  himself  his  own  conception,  or  his  own 
notion,  to  use  a  term  more  applicable  to  the  present  case, 
still  it  would  be  only  to  himself.  In  explaining  the 
meaning  of  his  new  term  to  others,  he  must  inevitably 
fall  right  back  into  the  phenomenal  terms  and  concep- 
tions he  had  discarded. 

What  has  been  said  is  especially  true  of  primitive  lan- 
guage. There  everything  lives,  and  breathes,  and  acts. 
Natural  phenomena  appear  as  the  acts  of  Hving  agents. 
Yivid  images  are  not  merely  things  of  rhetorical  choice, 
to  be  selected  for  purposes  of  ornament,  or  for  the 
exciting  of  particular  emotions,  but  are  forced  upon  the 
writer  in  almost  every  expression  he  uses.  His  language 
furnishes  him  with  no  other  materials.  It  is  thus  we 
find,  when  we  carry  ourselves  back  into  its  old  life,  that 
what  is  a  great  advantage  in  calling  out  vivid  conception 
becomes  a  seeming  disadvantage — but  only  a  seeming 
one — in  a  scientific  apphcation.  We  sometimes  blunder, 
too,  in  respect  to  the  real  force  the  ancient  writer  may 
have  intended  to  give  to  the  term  he  employs.  We  see 
the  image  in  the  etymology,  and  it  becomes  the  main 


PHENOMENAL  LANGIUAGB.  27 

sense  to  us,  although  it  may  have  been  already  obsolete 
to  him,  notwithstanding  he  still  employs  the  estabhshed 
language  ;  or  else  we  mistake  the  conception  for  the  fact 
itself,  or  what  may  be  a  still  worse  error,  we  treat  it  as 
we  would  an  express  metaphor  in  modern  poetry. 


CHAPTER  lY. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  SCRIPTURE. 

The  expression,  the  voice  of  the  Lord. — The  heaven  of  heavens. — The 
THIRD  heavens.— Hebrew  language  for  eclipses  of  the  sun  and  moon. 
— Anthropomorphism. — Parts  of  the  body,  as  names  for  soul. 

The  nature  of  phenomenal  language  and  the  distinctions 
on  which  it  is  grounded, —  especially  as  presented  in  the 
primitive  tongues, — may  receive  illustration  from  some 
of  the  most  familiar  examples  to  be  found  in  the  Sacred 
Writings.  We  read  Genesis  iii,  8,  of  the  "  Voice  of  the 
Lord  walking  in  the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day." 
Here  is  a  coneeptional  term.  '^)'^^^'^\>,  Kol-Yehovah  is 
the  Hebrew  word,  or  rather  phrase,  for  thunder.  Through 
use  it  may  come  to  be  employed  as  a  single  compound, 
and  to  represent  the  original  fact  with  little  or  nothing 
remaining  of  the  original  conception.  In  Job  and  the 
Psalms  it  is  of  frequent  occurrence,  still  retaining  its 
primitive  force,  but  coming  to  stand  for  the  phenomenon 
very  much  as  our  single  word,  or  the  Greek  /3povT*j,  or 
the  Latin  tonitru.  The  reader  is  referred  for  some  of 
the  most  striking  examples  to  Psalm  xxxix,  3,  etc. :  "  The 
voice  of  the  Lord  is  upon  the  waters ;  the  God  of  glory 
thunder eth  ;  the  Lord  is  upon  the  mighty  waters.  The 
voice  of  the  Lord  breaketh  the  cedars,  even  the  cedars 
of  Lebanon.  The  voice  of  the  Lord  calleth  out  the  flames 
of  fire.  The  voice  of  the  Lord  maketh  the  wilderness  to 
tremble,  and  layeth  bare  the  forests,  whilst  in  His  temple 


ILLUSTEATIONS   FROM   SCRIPTURE.  29 

men  speak  of  His  glory."  Compare  also  Job  xxxvii,  2  : 
"  Hearken  to  the  trembling  (or  rolling)  of  bis  voice,  and 
the  roaring  (Ji?.^)  or  deep  loud  sound,  that  proceedeth 
out  of  his  mouth."  The  translators  in  Genesis  have  given 
the  phenomenal  rendering ;  and  this  is  best,  because  the 
most  vivid,  and  most  true  to  the  ancient  conception.  To 
our  English  ear,  however,  it  may  make  the  word  Lo7'd 
the  subject  of  the  participle  ivalking  ;  whereas,  if  taken 
in  analogy  with  other  places,  it  might  be  truly  rendered, 
—  "  They  heard  the  thunder  going  forth  in  the  cool,  (or 
towards  the  evening,)  of  the  day."  The  word  sjVritite, 
(translated  walking)  may  refer,  as  every  Hebrew  scho- 
lar knows,  to  impersonal  as  well  as  to  personal  agents. 
It  is  appHed  to  the  waters  of  the  flood.  Gen.  viii,  5,  and 
to  the  going  forth  and  increasing  brightness  of  the  light, 
Prov.  iv,  18.  It  admirably  presents  the  phenomenal  con- 
ception attending  one  of  those  long  rolls  or  peals  of  thun- 
der that  seem  to  traverse  the  whole  horizon.  As  in  Job, 
xxxvii,  3  :  "  Under  the  whole  heaven  He  directeth  it ; 
After  it  a  sound  roareth  when  He  thundereth  with  His 
glorious  voice."  It  Avas  like  the  long  peal  which  -^s- 
chylus  represents  as  breaking  on  the  ear  of  the  daring 
Prometheus—  (1081) 

It  was  the  first  thunder-storm  the  sinning  pair  had  ever 
seen  or  heard,  and  their  impious  transgression  gave  it  an 
awful  significance.  They  were  frightened  at  a  pheno- 
menon from  which  the  guilty  soul  has  ever  since  shrunk, 
in  all  ages  of  the  world.  It  is  the  voice  of  the  Lord  yet, 
through  however  many  undulating  series  of  second  causes 
it  may  reach  us.     Science  can  never  completely  oblite- 


30  ILLUSTRATIONS   FROM   SCRIPTURE. 

rate  this  early  phenomenal  conception  of  the  human  soul, 
and  no  amount  of  Epicurean  boasting  can  do  away  the 
impression,  that  God  is  indeed  near  to  us  in  the  thunder- 
storm, however  distant  he  may  seem  to  be  in  other  ope- 
rations of  nature.  It  is  not,  however,  alone  to  the  more 
outward  phenomena  that  the  term  (or  a  kindred  one)  is 
applied  in  the  sacred  language.  In  the  description  of 
the  sublime  scenes  presented  to  the  Prophet's  vision -in 
the  Mount  of  Horeb,  it  is  used  to  denote  that  more  inte- 
rior divine  power  which  lies  back  of  the  wind,  the  earth- 
quake, and  even  the  fire.  The  Lord,  it  is  said,  was  in 
no  one  of  these  directly  ;  but  after  them  all  comes  the 
"  still  small  voice  ;"  or  the  subtile  voice,  (as  rif^"^  literally 
means)  —  the  attenuated,  silent  voice,  or  voice  of  silence. 
And  when  Elijah  heard  it,  he  "wrapped  his  face  in  his 
mantle  and  went  forth  and  stood  at  the  door  of  the  cave." 
As  another  example,  we  may  take  the  sublime  Hebrew 
declaration  as  presented  to  us  in  the  prayer  of  Solomon, 
"  The  Heaven  and  Heaven  of  Heavens  cannot  contain 
Thee."  tiere  the  Divine  immensity  is  the  fact,  or  truth, 
— in  itself  the  ineffable  truth.  The  conception,  on  the 
other  hand,  by  which  the  truth  is  represented,  is  that 
of  a  higher  Heaven  or  empyrean,  embracing  a  lower 
Heaven,  or  Heavens,  which  is  the  old  Hebrew  as  well  as 
(rreek  image  of  the  universe.  The  image  is  itself  a 
language.  If  we  wish  for  terms  more  scientific  or  philo- 
sophical, we  must  either  cheat  ourselves  with  such  as 
appear  more  abstract,  simply  because  the  pictures  that 
were  once  in  their  roots  have  faded  away,  or  we  are  com- 
pelled to  take  up  with  mere  conceptionless  negations, 
«?uch  as  immensity,  infinity,  etc. 


ILLUSTRATIONS   FROM    SCRIPTURE.  31 

In  the  same  manner  may  we  treat  the  expression,  the 
Tliird  Heavens^  as  denoting  the  most  transcendent  state 
of  being.  The  glorious  ineffable  fact  is  one  thing  ;  the 
language  and  mode  of  conception — itself  an  inner  speech 
— form  quite  another  thing.  To  make  the  process  com- 
plete, then,  there  must  be  a  double  transfer.  Just  as 
we  translate  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  words  into  Enghsh 
words,  so  must  we  likewise  translate  the  Hebrew  image 
or  conception  into  the  modern  conception,  if  we  have  one, 
whether  it  be  furnished  by  science  or  come  from  the  pro- 
gress of  the  common  mind.  One  translation  is  just  as 
proper  as  the  other,  unless  for  the  sake  of  its  greater 
vividness  we  prefer  to  read  the  great  ultimate  facts  of 
nature  and  God's  power  therein,  through  the  old  imagery, 
as  well  as  in  the  old  words  themselves.  Whoever  thus 
reads,  we  may  say,  will  find  his  account  in  it.  The  con- 
ceptions of  Solomon  and  Paul  will  be  found,  to  say  the 
least,  as  favorable  to  elevation  of  thought  and  grandeur 
of  emotion  as  any  of  the  scientific  formulas  of  Herschell 
and  La  Place. 

Had  Paul  undertaken  to  tell  us  scientifically  or  nume- 
rically about  this  third  Heaven,  —  as  for  example  to  give 
us  the  distance  between  it  and  the  second,  as  the  impos- 
tor Mohammed  has  done — he  would  have  turned  the 
conception  into  a  fact,  and  made  himself  and  the  writings 
of  which  he  was  the  inspired  medium  responsible  for  its 
absolute  truth  or  falsity.  But  the  Bible  never  does  any 
thing  of  the  kind.  And  here  is  one  great  difference 
between  it  and  other  writings  with  which  the  infidel 
would  sometimes  compare  the  Sacred  Book.  The  close 
student  cannot  help  being  struck  by  it,  and  revering  it 
as  one  of  the  marks  of  its  divine  origin.      Our  Holy 


82  ILLUSTRATIONS   FROM    SCRIPTURE. 

ScriiDture  shrinks  not  from  the  boldest  supernatural ;  but 
then  it  is  ever  the  supernatural  in  all  its  ineffable  gran- 
deur. It  never  commits  itself  by  any  such  change  of 
image  or  conception  into  fact,  as  to  stamp  upon  it  that 
legendary  appearance  -which  no  intelligent  reader  can 
mistake  in  the  wild  Talmudic  and  Mohammedan  absurdi- 
ties. We  may  affirm,  too,  that  it  was  only  by  such  a 
transmutation  of  old  imagery  into  actual  fact,  there  arose 
a  great  part  of  the  Greek  and  Scandinavian,  as  well  as 
Hindoo,  mythologies. 

Again :  "  The  sun  shall  be  darkened  and  the  moon 
turned  to  blood."  We  are  not  quite  certain  whether 
this  is  poetry,  strictly,  or  phenomenal  prose, — that  is, 
the  ordinary  conceptional  expression  for  the  fact  in  nature 
it  represents.  But  taking  it,  as  we  well  may,  for  the 
common  Hebrew  language  to  denote  an  eclipse,  the  one 
of  the  sun,  and  the  other  of  the  moon,  and  we  have  again 
the  clear  distinction  on  which  we  have  before  insisted. 
The  expression  may  be  used  even  after  the  primary  image 
has  ceased  to  be  prominently  suggested  by  it.  It  may 
even  enter  in  the  scientific  language  of  a  later  date.  A 
turning  to  blood,  or  some  word  which  has  that  conception 
at  its  root,  might  even  get  into  books  of  astronomy  as  the 
name  for  a  lunar  eclipse,  just  as  has  been  the  case  in 
respect  to  this  very  word  eclipse^  (or  a  failing,  or  going 
out,')  which,  though  now  scientific  was  once  as  strictly 
phenomenal  as  the  old  Hebrew  phrases. 

We  might  cite  here  all  those  expressions  in  the  Bible 
which  have  furnished  infidels  an  opportunity  foi*  expati- 
ating on  what  they  would  style  the  gross  anthropomor- 
phism of  the  Scriptures, — such  as  the  ascribing  to  God, 
hands  and  eyes  and  other  members  of  the  human  body. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM   SCRIPTURE.  66 

But  there  is  no  need  of  dwelling  upon  them.  The 
youngest  Sabbath  scholar  is  familiar  with  their  natural 
and  easy  explanation.  They  are  conceptional  names 
for  the  divine  strength,  the  divine  omniscience,  the 
divine  providence.  When  pure  spirituality,  away  from 
all  images  and  all  forms  of  space,  is  to  be  expressed,  no 
science,  and  no  philosophy,  can  approach  the  majestic 
style  of  the  Old  Testament — "Am  I  a  God  at  hand 
and  not  afar  off?  Do  not  I  fill  heaven  and  earth,  saith 
the  Lord  ?" — Jer.  xxiii,  24.  "  Take  ye  good  heed  unto 
yourselves,  for  ye  saw  no  matter  of  similitude  when  the 
Lord  spake  unto  you  in  Horeb  out  of  the  fire.  Take 
heed  lest  ye  lift  up  your  eyes  unto  heaven,  and  when 
ye  see  the  sun  and  the  moon  and  the  stars,  even  all  the 
host  of  heaven,  should  be  led  to  worship  them ;  Take 
heed  to  yourselves  lest  ye  make  you  any  Hkeness  of  any 
thing  on  the  earth,  or  anything  in  the  air,  or  anything  in 
the  waters  beneath  the  earth." — Deut.  vi,  15,  19,  23. 

Other  illustrations,  if  they  were  needed,  might  be 
derived  from  the  use  the  Bible  makes  of  the  names  of 
certain  parts  of  the  body  to  denote  the  soul,  and  different 
faculties  of  the  soul.  We  refer  to  such  words  as  liem^t, 
reins,  hoivels,  the  "  inward  parts."  There  might  also 
be  remarked,  in  passing,  the  almost  entire  absence  of  that 
analogous  conception  which  is  so  frequent  and  so  striking 
in  modern  phraseology.  Allusion  is  had  to  the  notion  of 
the  head  or  brain  as  the  mind,  or  the  seat  of  the  mind, 
— a  mode  of  conception  to  which  we  have  become  so 
accustomed  as  to  regard  it  almost  as  a  matter  of  direct 
consciousness.  There  is  but  one  book  in  the  Bible,  in 
which  such  reference  is  to  be  found ;  we  have  it  in  the 
Chaldee  of  Daniel,  (iv,  2,)  where  Nebuchadnezzar  savs, 


'84  ILLUSTRATIONS   FROM   SCRIPTURE. 

— "The  visions  of  my  head  troubled  me."  No  where 
else  can  there  be  discovered  the  least  trace  of  it.  So  is 
it,  also,  in  the  Greek  and  Latin.  The  opinion  as  a  specu- 
lative tenet  may  be  sometimes  found  among  the  philoso- 
phers, but  nowhere  does  it  enter  into  the  ordinary 
language.  No  word,  or  phrase,  or  metaphor,  in  common 
use  has  its  ground  in  any  such  conception.  Various 
other  parts  of  the  body  are  employed  in  the  Scripture 
for  this  purpose,  but  it  never  commits  itself  by  turning 
the  conception  into  a  fact,  as  our  modern  phrenology 
does  when  it  ignorantly  denotes  its  science  of  the  skull 
by  a  word  denoting  originally  a  very  different  part  of  the 
body.  The  Greek  (pf^jv,  from  whence  is  manufactured 
the  modern  word  phrenology,  comes  the  nearest  to  what 
is  expressed  by  the  frequent  Hebrew  fii^'^s,  the  reins 
(Latin  renes,  Greek  (p^s'vss),  the  conceived  seat  of  the 
inmost  thoughts  and  affections  of  the  soul.  "Thou  hast 
tried  my  heart  and  my  reins." 

The  distinction  between  matter  of  fact  and  matter  of 
language  arising  from  the  mode  of  conceiving  the  fact, 
seems  so  plain  that  we  may  well  wonder  that  any  should 
have  stumbled  at  declarations  of  which  it  offers  so  prompt 
a  solution.  The  one  we  take  as  absolute  verity,  if  we 
beheve  the  record,  and  for  this  we  hold  it  responsible. 
The  other  belongs  to  the  form  of  outward  expression, 
which  even  the  medium  who  employs  it  may  not  regard 
as  exact,  or  may  use  as  the  current  and  best  understood 
language  of  his  day.  It  is  a  matter  of  wonder,  too,  that 
objections  drawn  from  this  source  should  have  been  so 
strenuously  pressed  against  certain  passages  of  the  Bible 
when  the  difficulty,  if  difficulty  it  be,  pervades  every 
part  of  the  present  revelation,  and  must  appear  in  any 


ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM   SCRIPTURE.  35 

linguistic  or  written  communication  from  the  infinite  to 
the  finite  mind,  however  advanced  the  science  or  philo- 
sophy by  which  its  phenomenal  language  may  be  sup- 
posed to  be  corrected  and  improved. 


CHAPTER  V. 


ANALYSIS    OP   THE    LEADING    IDEA   IN    ITS   APPLICATION 

TO    THE   MOSAIC   ACCOUNT. 
Facts  as  distinguished  from  appearances. — Divine  facts. — Divine  acts 

OR  BEGINNINGS  IN  NATURE. — ThREE  KINDS  OF  NATURALISM.— BlANK  NATU' 
BALISM. — ThEISTIC  NATURALISM,  OR  NATURALISM  OF  SCIENCE  WITH  ITS  ONE 
FIRST  CAUSE. — ThE  RELIGIOUS  OR  SUPERNATURAL  NATURALISM. — SiX  DIVINE 
ACTS  OR  BEGINNINGS  RECORDED  IN  GENESIS. — ThBEE  KINDS  OF  PHENOMENAL 
LANGUAGE.— The  SIMPLY  PHENOMENAL,  AS  DISTINGUISHED  FROM  THE  SCIEN- 
TIFIC, AND  POETICAL. — EACH  HAS  ITS   OWN  GRAMMAR  AND  LEXICON. 

As  in  the  examples  cited,  so  also  in  the  account  of  crea- 
tion, must  we  distinguish  between  the  fact  or  facts  (it 
may  be  in  their  essential  agency  the  ineflfable  facts) 
revealed,  and  the  phenomenal  language  in  which,  or 
through  which,  they  are  thus  revealed.  This  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  that  arbitrary  process  of  rejecting  as 
poetical  or  mythical,  whatever  displeases  our  science,  or, 
it  may  be,  our  ignorance.  One  method  proceeds  by  no 
rules  whatever.  The  other  is  grounded  on  laws  of  lan- 
guage, themselves  possessing  the  most  scientific  beauty, 
and  easy  to  be  applied.  We  have  God's  eterndl  facts  of 
creation,  revealed  to  Moses  in  their  chronological  order 
through  conceptions  familiar  to  Moses  (or  it  may  be 
some  one  much  older  than  Moses)  and  expressed  by  him 
in  articulate  Hebrew  words  which  give  birth  to  the  same 
conceptions  in  the  minds  of  others.  Moses  may  have 
been  scientifically  very  ignorant.  His  readers  may  have 
been  equally  so  for  many  ages.  So,  too,  our  highest 
science  may  fall,  and  doubtless  does  fall,  immensely  short 


ANALYSIS    OF   THE   LEADING   IDEA.  37 

of  the  ineffable  truth,  and  may  be  m  this  respect  as  defi- 
cient a  medium  as  the  Bible  account,  whilst  its  dry  for- 
mulas would  be  far  below  it  in  vividness  of  imagery  and 
corresponding  power  of  impression  on  the  readers  mind. 
All  tliis  may  be  so,  and  yet  the  record  not  only  immu- 
tably true,  but  also  the  best  possible  mode  that  Infinite 
Wisdom  could  have  devised  to  convey  that  truth,  in  its 
m^ost  important  elements,  to  the  finite  human  soul. 

It  is  time  to  relieve  our  readers  from  these  dry  discus- 
sions ^nd  proceed  to  direct  exegesis,  but  before  doing  so 
it  may  be  well,  by  way  of  recapitulation,  to  state  more 
formally  the  leading  features  of  our  main  position  in  its 
application  to  the  Mosaic  account,  and  as  such  position 
may  be  referred  to  in  our  interpretations  of  other  parts 
of  the  Scriptures  having  a  bearing  upon  that  ancient 
record. 

By  the  ievm  facts  or  acts,  which  we  have  so  frequently 
employed,  (and  which  in  this  connection  is  preferred  to 
the  word  truth)  may  be  denoted  any  physical  agency  as 
represented  in  the  most  outward  phenomena,  that  is, 
those  ajjpearances  which  terminate  in  the  individual 
world  of  each  man's  own  sensorium.  The  appearance 
is  not  the  fact,  but  representative  of  it.  That,  however, 
which  may  seem  to  occupy  the  place  of  a  physical 
agency,  when  viewed  in  relation  to  those  last  or  most 
outward  phenomena  in  which  it  appears,  may  be  itself 
phenomenal  (or  a  mode  of  appearing^  in  respect  to 
other  seeming  agencies  lying  back  of  it,  and  so  on  until 
we  come  to  some  principium,  ol^x^,  principle,  or  begin- 
ning. The  words  facts,  or  acts,  therefore,  may  better 
be  taken,  at  once,  of  those  divine  acts  which  may  be 
supposed  to  make  a  beginning,  or  beginnings,  in  nature, 

4 


38  ANALYSIS    OF   THE   LEADING   IDEA   IN    ITS 

and  of  which  all  other  steps  in  the  outgoing  series  are 
but  appearances,  or  manifestations.*     Now,  in  respect 

*We  may  present  the  idea  in  something  resembling  a  mathe- 
matical formula.  Let  X,  then,  represent  the  remote  initial 
act,  fact,  or  energy ;  let  P  represent  the  ultimate  phenomenon, 
or  last  appearance  to  the  senses;  and  jl>,  with  its  functions,  the 
intermediate  causalities.  The  formula,  or  series,  then  would 
stand  thus — 

P,     P-i^     P2^     P3>     P4,     P5 Pn X. 

Here  each  intermediate  term  though  apparently  causative  of 
the  one  that  follows,  is  really  itself  a  phenornenon,  th^t  is  a 
manifestation  of  the  j^receding,  and  so  on.  The  n^^  term  is 
ever  at  a  remote  distance  from  X,  and  only  stands  for  the 
causal  energy,  as  long  as  no  one  is  discovered  behind  it.  The 
mind  a'  priori  divines  causalities  as  standing  behind  all  mani- 
festations ;  science  goes  to  work  and  discovers  them,  but  only 
to  become,  in  this  manner,  phenomenal  in  their  turn.  The 
initial  act  or  energy  X,  is,  in  itself,  ineffable,  and  is  only  named 
from  some  of  its  phenomena  or  manifestations.  In  taking, 
however,  for  such  naming,  any  but  the  ultimate  P,  we  run  the 
risk  of  its  being  superseded,  on  equally  good  grounds,  by  some 
other,  whilst  in  every  such  case  there  is  an  endorsment  of  it  as 
a  scientific  finality.  Nothing  is.  therefore,  gained  in  one  way, 
whilst  much  is  lost  in  another.  Once  depart  from  the  ultimate 
or  most  outward  manifestation,  and  there  is  no  catholic  name 
the  same  for  all  men  and  for  all  ages. 

Take  for  example,  a  solar  eclipse.  Here,  in  the  series  of 
phenomenal  causalities, 

P  is  the  ultimate  phenomenon,  that  is,  the  failing  or  groing 

out  of  the  sun. 
p^ — The  first  step  in  scientific  discovery;  or,  the  moon's 
appearing  to  come  between  the  sun  and  the  eye  of  the 
spectator. 
p2 — The  motion  of  the  earth  bringing  the  eye  of  the  spec- 
tator into  that  relation. 
P3 — The  position  of  the  nodes  of  the  moon's  orbit,  and  which 
is  as  essential  to  the  final  phenomena  as  any  of  the  second- 
ary links. 
p^ — The  law  of  the  earth's  annual  revolution  determinative 
of  the  times  of  nodal  conjunction,  along  with  which  may 


APPLICATION   TO    THE   MOSAIC    ACCOUNT.  39 

to  such  divine  acts  there  may  be  three  views.  The  first 
is  that  of  sheer  naturalism,  as  it  may  be  called,  which 
admits  nothing  strictly  divine, —  which  has,  in  fact,  no 
principium,  but  regards  nature  as  an  eternal  ab  ipso 
development,  either  cyclical,  or  rectilineally  progressive. 
If  it  has  a  God  at  all,  it  is  the  God  of  Epicurus,  not  supra 
mundane,  but  extra  mundane, — one  who,  if  not  a  product 

be  taken  the  relative  magnitudes  and  distances  of  the  two 
bodies  in  producing  the  actual  result. 
Pit, — That  unknown  law  which  modern  science  has  not  yet 
reached,  or  that  disposition  of  things  with  which  is  con- 
nected the  cause  of  the  earth's  motion  on  its  axes,  and 
stiU  more  remotely,  its  revolution  round  the  sun,  or,  with 
the  sun,  round  some  still  more  distant  centre. 
We  are  aware  of  scientific  defects  in  the  above  scheme ;  some 
of  the  terms  may  not  seem  to  fall  in  the  same  category ;  yet  it 
suffices  well  for  a  general  illustration. 

Now  from  each  one  of  these  may  be  taken  a  name  represen- 
tative of  the  remote,  or  the  whole,  causality.  We  may  name  it 
from  P,  and  call  it  an  eclijjse  (h'ksi-^.ig') ,  that  is,  a  failing  or 
going  out ;  or  we  may  name  it  from  p  -^  and  call  it  an  occulta- 
tion,  that  is  a  hiding,  or  we  may  name  it  from  2^2  ^^^  ^^^^  i*- 
a  nodal  conjunction,  and  so  on.  But,  for  the  reasons  before 
given,  the  fii'st  naming  is  the  best,  because  the  most  catholic  as 
well  as  the  most  significant.  Making  an  application  of  such 
view  to  science  generally,  we  might  say  that  the  n''*  terms  at 
the  present  stage  of  discovery  are  to  be  found  in  such  words  as 
gravitation,  magnetism,  crystallization,  elasticity,  etc. — 
These  do  yet  stand  for  energies,  or  causalities,  because  there  has 
not  yet  been  discovered  that  still  rjore  remote  energy  of  which 
they  are  manifestations,  and  which,  when  discovered,  will  con- 
vert them  all  into  phenomena,  that  is,  make  them  appear. 
When  this  is  done,  then  instead  of  being  simply  vooJfxsva,  or 
notions  of  the  mind,  they  become  (pajvo'/j.sva ;  in  other  words, 
they  come  out,  and  take  their  places  among  ''the  things  that 
are  seen'^ — whether  by  the  eye  or  the  telescope — or  which  are 
so  known  that  their  movements  and  dispositions  can  be  conceiv- 
ed, or  represented  to  the  imaging  faculty  of  the  mind. 


40  ANALYSIS   OF   THE   LEADING   IDEA   IN   ITS 

of  nature  herself,  has  nothing  to  do  either  with  nature 
or  the  universe.  The  second  may  be  called  the  theistic 
naturalism,  which  brings  in  a  Deity,  or  first  cause  (as  a 
deus  ex  macldna)  to  start  the  machinery  of  the  world, 
and  then  admits  of  no  subsequent  interference.  It  has 
one  divine  act  away  back  in  some  remote  eternity  as  far 
off  as  may  be  found  convenient,  but  never  repeated, — 
all  things  proceeding  from  it  by  an  eternal  and  uninter- 
rupted development.  The  third  may  be  styled  the  reli- 
gious, or  supernatural  naturalism,  such  as  is  taught  in 
the  Bible.  This,  besides  the  great  principium,  allows  of 
many  divine  acts,  or  beginnings  in  nature,  by  which  a 
new  hfe  is  imparted  that  did  not  exist  before  and  which 
the  previous  nature  never  could  have  developed, —  or,  a 
new  series  of  forces  is  originated, —  or,  a  change  is  made 
in  old  forces,  so  as  to  produce  results  that  would  not 
otherwise  by  any  merely  natural  process  have  taken 
place.  It  is,  in  other  words,  the  mixture  throughout 
God's  kingdom  of  the  natural  and  supernatural  as  exhi- 
bited both  in  the  creation  of  worlds  and  in  the  providen- 
tial government  of  worlds, — in  which  combination  the 
supernatural  is  not  determined  by  any  developments  of 
the  natural,  nor  is  it  arbitrary  or  lawlessly  sovereign  in 
its  proceedings,  but  governed  by  laws  of  its  own  having 
their  reason  and  their  ground  in  its  own  divine  and 
supra-mundane  sphere. 

A  series  of  such  divine  acts,  or  beginnings,  are  pre- 
sented to  us  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  They  are 
six  m  number.  There  may  have  been  subordinate  ones 
under  each  grand  operation  (as  for  example  the  great 
generic  beginning  of  animal  hfe  may  have  had  many 
specific  beginnmgs  accompanying  and  following  it)  but 


APPLICATION   TO   THE   MOSAIC   ACCOUNT.  41 

these  six  constitute  the  great  outlmes,  and  are  presented 
to  us  in  their  chronological  order. 

But  in  what  language  shall  this  chronological  order  of 
facts  be  given  to  us  so  as  to  be  a  universal  revelation  for 
all  men  and  for  all  ages.  The  question  is  answered  bj 
saying  that  language  is  of  two  kinds,  or  rather,  has  two 
stages  in  the  process  of  communication.  Words  present 
images,  or  conceptions.  Images  or  conceptions  (or  in 
other  words  phenomena)  re-present  the  ultimate  facts 
that  stand  away  behind  them.  Thus  all  language  is 
mainly  if  not  wholly  phenomenal.  But  here  again  arise 
three  distinctions.  There  is  the  simipij  phenomenal^ — 
the  scientific — and  the  poetical.  All  these  are  pheno- 
menal, but  in  a  different  way.  The  first  employs  only 
those  appearances  which  present  themselves  directly  and 
primarily,  or  as  we  might  say,  spontaneously,  to  the 
sense, —  that  are  alike  in  all  men,  and  thus  directly 
represent  for  all  men  the  ineffable  fact  standing  behind 
them  at  however  remote  a  distance.  The  second,  or 
scientific,  takes  more  interior  phenomena,  either  as  dis- 
covered by  closer  examination  of  the  prima  facie  appear- 
ances, or  as  suggested  to  the  mind's  conception  by  some 
hypothesis  in  respect  to  theu'  relations.  The  third 
selects  its  phenomena,  or  makes  them,  as  the  name 
poetry  impHes,  or  borrows  them  from  other  objects,  or 
makes  out  of  them  analogies  or  comparisions  for  poetical 
effect.  Again — they  differ  in  their  end  or  design. 
The  object  of  the  first  is  simply  to  give  the  more  vivid 
thought  of  the  ineffable  fact,  as  a  fact  without  reference 
to  its  philosophy.  The  object  of  the  second  is  to  explain 
the  relation  of  phenomena  to  each  other,  and  if  possible 
(a  thing,  however,  which  science  has  never  done  and 


42  ANALYSIS   OF   THE   LEADING   IDEA   IN   ITS 

never  will  do)  to  trace  their  connection  all  the  way  up 
to  the  great  ultimate  truth  or  agency  they  represent. 
The  design  of  the  third  is  not  only  to  give  a  clear 
thought,  hke  the  first j  but  to  connect  with  it  some  strong 
emotion. 

Now  in  reference  to  these  three  kinds  of  language  we 
may  say,  that  the  Bible  can  employ,  and  does  employ 
most  copiously,  the  fa^st  and  the  third;  but  it  cannot 
make  use  of  the  second.  The  reason  is  that  the  adop- 
tion of  scientific  language,  as  above  defined,  would  be 
an  endorsement  of  its  absolute  correctness,  whilst  the 
responsibihty  of  no  such  indorsement  could  be  ever 
imphed  in  the  use  of  the  others.  Revelation  could  not 
so  endorse  the  language  of  science  because  it  is  continu- 
ally changmg.  Subsequent  discoveries  are  ever  showing 
its  incorrectness  and  deficiency  even  in  respect  to  the 
relations  of  phenomena  themselves  (which  is  its  peculiar 
province),  whilst  from  the  great  ultimate  agencies  it  is 
ever  at  a  distance  which  no  formula  can  measure.  Thus, 
to  illustrate  our  leading  thought  by  examples  and  terms 
suggested  by  the  work  of  the  second  period,  we  may  say 
that  the  words  and  conceptions  firmament ^  shy^  water 
above,  and  water  below  the  firmament,  mean  the  same  in 
simple  phenomenal  language,  that  atmospheres^  rarefac- 
tions^ condensations^  reflections  and  refractions  represent 
in  scientific, — the  same  too  that  the  treasures  or  store- 
houses of  the  rain,  the  "molten  looking  glass,"  the  out- 
spread tent,  the  celestial  curtaiiis,  and  the  cloudy  canvas 
image  to  us  in  the  poetical.  Each  represents,  in  its  own 
way,  the  same  remote  facts,  or  apparatus  of  physical 
agencies.  Each,  however,  gives  a  distinct  version ;  and 
each  is  to  be  interpreted  by  its  own  grammar  and  lexicon.' 


APPLICATION   TO   THE   MOSAIC   ACCOUNT.  43 

Our  object,  then,  is  not  that  which  is  commonly  attri- 
buted to  similar  efforts,  namely,  to  reconcile  science  and 
the  written  revelation,  or  to  assume  any  real  or  apparent 
controversy  between  them.  They  are  to  be  regarded  as 
belonging  to  two  distinct  spheres,  as  having,  in  fact, 
nothing  to  do  with  each  other.  And  yet  in  showing  this 
there  is  another  inference  that  is  equally  to  be  avoided. 
We  mean  the  very  common  view  that  the  Bible  is  given 
solely  to  teach  reUgion  or  morality  in  their  narrowest 
definitions,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  any  forms  of  phy- 
sical truth.  In  opposition  to  this  it  may  be  maintained 
to  be  the  highest  authority  in  the  physical  as  well  as  in 
the  moral  world — especially  in  those  great  problems  that 
are  connected  with  the  origin  and  destiny  of  man,  and 
of  man's  abode, —  in  other  words,  those  ultimate  physical 
facts  that  are  inseparable  from  the  most  important  moral 
bearings.  ''The  grass  withereth,  the  flower  fadeth" — 
nature  comes  and  goes,  whether  at  longer  or  shorter 
periods — "but  the  Word  of  our  God  shall  stand  for- 
ever." Its  grand  subject,  it  is  true,  is  redemption,  or 
the  Kingdom  of  Grace,  but  its  infallibihty  may  be  also 
regarded  as  embracing  whatever  in  the  world  of  matter 
or  of  spirit  may  have  any  connection  with  this  its  highest 
and  peculiar  theme. 


CHAPTEK  VI. 


WORK   OF   THE   FIRST  DAY.      BEGINNING   OF   CREATION. 

The  Mosaic  BEGiNNixa  not  the  absolute  fbincifium. — The  first  verse 

NOT  TO  be  separated  FROM  THE  REST. — THE  FIRST  ORIGINATION  OF  MATTER. 

What  is  matter?— The  Hebrew  Bara, — the  Latin  Creare. — The  hea- 
vens—atmospherical AND  astronomical.— The  Hebrew  tebel. — The 
glory  above  the  heavens— dual  form  of  the  Hebrew  word. 

In  the  heginning  Qod  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth. 
The  word  heginning  here  may  be  taken  in  a  relative  as 
well  as  in  an  absolute  sense  ;  and  the  context  together  with 
extrinsic  considerations  can  alone  decide  which  is  the  true 
interpretation.  It  certainly  is  not  the  absolute  begin- 
ning of  aU  being.  It  cannot  be  the  beginning  mentioned 
in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Gospel  by  John,  when  the  Logos 
was  with  God, — the  ';i'^wTOTO/toff,  the  First  Born  before  all 
creation.  It  could  not  have  been  the  beginning  of  all 
lower  spiritual  existence,  such  as  the  angeUc,  or  the  arch- 
angelic,  or  in  general,  the  superhuman  spiritual  creations. 
There  are  not  the  least  intimations  in  the  Scriptures  that 
angels  were  created  at  the  same  time  with  our  present 
world  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  not  a  few  passages  from 
which  we  might  fairly  infer  the  contrary.  It  could  not, 
therefore,  have  been  the  absolute  beginning  of  material 
substance ;  for  we  have  no  right  to  suppose  that  any 
being  below  the  rank  of  Deity,  or,  in  other  words,  any 
created  being,  is  purely  spiritual,  that  is,  immaterial,  or 
without  a  corporeal  vehicle  of  some  kind  possessing  not 
only  extent  in  space  but  dynamical  properties  which  we 
cannot  separate  in  our  minds  from  the  idea  of  the  mate- 


BEGINNING   OF    CREATION.  45 

rial.  Was  it,  then,  the  absolute  beginning  of  the  organ- 
ized worlds,  or  of  the  matter  of  which  they  are  composed ; 
or  does  it  refer  simply  to  our  own  world  with  its  immedi- 
ate celestial  system ;  or,  finally,  does  it  denote  only  the 
fashioning  or  forming  of  our  world  into  its  present  state, 
without  its  being  intended  to  give  us  any  information 
respecting  its  more  ancient  elimination  from  absolute 
nonentity  ? 

Now  in  respect  to  all  these  questions,  there  is  only 
one  that  can  be  answered  from  the  record  with  perfect 
confidence.  It  most  surely  does  teach  us  the  fashioning 
or  forming,  in  some  way,  of  our  present  world  into  its 
present  state.  All  else  is  left  uncertain  and  undeter- 
mined. Those  who  think  that  there  is  taught  here  an 
absolute  origination  of  the  earth's  matter  out  of  nothing, 
would  regard  the  first  verse  as  severed  from  the  others, 
and  as  having  special  reference  to  the  primordial  act. 
But  high  as  are  the  authorities  who  have  defended  this 
view,  we  cannot  agree  with  them.  Whatever  may  be 
believed  in  respect  to  this  first  origination  of  matter, 
whether  of  the  earth  or  of  all  worlds,  there  is  good  rea- 
son for  doubting  whether  it  is  actually  meant  to  be  set 
forth  either  in  the  beginning,  or  in  any  other  part  of  this 
account.  It  is  not,  we  think,  the  easy  and  natural  im- 
pression one  would  get  from  the  simphcity  of  the  narra- 
tive. It  would  not  readily  occur  to  the  reader  that 
there  was  such  a  chasm  between  the  first  and  subsequent 
verses.  The  language  seems  not  to  denote  a  separate 
primordial  act,  but  to  cover  the  whole  process  that  fol- 
lows. It  suggests  to  us  the  fashioning  of  something 
which,  as  far  as  the  material  is  concerned,  is  already  in 
existence  as  the  subject  of  the  operation,  or  series  of 


46  WORK    OF   THE   FIRST   DAY. 

operations,  afterwards  described.  The  beginning,  then, 
is  the  leginn'mg  of  this  fasJdoning.  According  to  this 
view,  the  first  verse,  instead  of  standing  separate,  may 
rather  be  taken  as  the  introductory  title,  or  caption,  to 
the  account,  describing  generally,  or  in  the  briefest  terms, 
the  same  work  which  is  stated  more  in  detail  below.  In 
the  heginning  Crod  created  the  heavens  and  the  earthy 
—  and  this,  as  we  may  paraphrase  it,  was  the  manner, 
and  these  the  steps,  or  chronological  order,  in  which  this 
creation  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth  was  accomplished. 
If  this  view  be  right,  the  beginning  mentioned  was  not 
the  metaphysical  iDrincipium,  but  the  beginning  of  our 
present  mundane  state  of  things ;  and  this,  we  think  will 
the  more  clearly  appear  from  what  may  be  said  respect- 
ing the  true  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  n'^^,  and  our  word 
create. 

In  truth,  we  know  not  what  matter  is.  When  we 
attempt  to  trace  it  to  its  ultimate  principle  (or  begin- 
ning), we  find  remaining  in  our  minds  only  that  notion 
of  force  or  power  which  belongs  to  the  understanding. 
This  is  all  that  is  left  when  we  go  back,  or  attempt  to  go 
back,  of  all  such  images  or  conceptions  of  the  sense  as 
are  connected  with  the  motion,  and  changing,  or  fashion- 
ing of  matter  understood  in  some  way  to  exist.  Hence 
its  origin  could  not  be  conveyed  to  us  under  any  such 
images  or  conceptions.  It  is,  indeed,  to  be  taken  as  the 
great  physical  fact,  embracing  the  ground  of  every  sub- 
sequent fact,  that  the  matter  (be  it  what  it  may)  from 
which  the  heavens  and  earth  subsist  is  not  eternal,  for 
then  it  would  be  included  in  the  idea  of  Deity ;  neither 
did  it  come  from  chance,  or  any  blind  law  or  develop- 
ment, but  must  have  had  its  orimi  in  time,  and  from  the 


BEGINNING   OF    CREATION.  47 

wisdom  and  word  of  God.  We  do  not,  however,  think 
that  this,  true  as  it  must  be  in  itself,  is  meant  to  be 
taught  directly  in  Genesis,  because  that  whole  account 
is  j^resented  to  the  sense,  or  rather  to  our  faith  through 
the  sense.  But  this  great  fact  is  offered  to  our  faith 
directly,  or  without  any  such  intervening  media,- — it 
being  impossible  for  the  human  mind  to  receive  it  in  any 
other  way.  Thus  the  Apostle  says,  Hebrews  xi,  3  — 
*' Through  faith  we  understand  that  the  worlds  were 
made  by  the  word  of  God,  so  that  the  things  which  are 
seen  were  not  made  of  things  which  do  appear. '^^  NooCixsv, 
says  the  inspired  writer, —  that  is,  we  do  not  pe7'ceive  it, 
nor  conceive  it,  but  take  it  directly  by  faith  as  an  ulti- 
mate fact  or  truth  involved  in  the  soul's  idea  of  God,  and 
which  no  image  addressed  to,  or  derived  from,  the  con- 
ceiving faculty  can  represent.  All  the  primal  forces 
from  which  come  the  tilings  seen  lie  entirely  out  of  the 
field  of  the  sense,  either  as  perceived  or  conceived  under 
any  of  the  forms  of  the  sense,  and  this  must  be  especially 
true  of  the  great  primal  originating  force  of  all.  "We 
must  be  careful,  however,  not  to  regard  it  as  simply  the 
divine  power  continually  energizing  in  space.  Such  a 
thought  is  full  of  peril  as  making  matter  but  an  emanation 
of  deity,  or  a  part  of  deity,  and  thus  involving  us  in  a 
mere  physical  pantheism.  It  is  a  real  entity  distinct 
from  God,  which  God  has  originated,  and  to  which  he 
has  given  an  immanent  existence  of  its  own  in  space  and 
time, — how,  we  know  not,  and,  perhaps,  have  no  faculty 
for  knowing ;  yet  still  we  can  believe  it  as  the  great  ulti- 
mate fact  of  facts  in  the  physical  world.  We  but  use 
the  very  words  of  the  Apostle,  when  we  say,  it  is  not 
cpajyoix?vov.  but  vov|j.=vov,  not  a  phenomenon,  not  a  thing  that 


48  WORK   OF  THE   FIRST  DAY, 

appears^  not  a  thing  seen,  not  capable  of  being  known 
bj  any  of  the  senses,  not  imagined,  or  conceivable,  but 
understood* 

The  account  in  Genesis,  on  the  other  hand,  is  entirely 
for  the  sense,  or,  we  may  rather  say,  addressed  to  the 
mind,  and  the  faith,  through  the  sense  and  the  concep- 
tions of  the  sense.  It  is  this  thought  that  furnishes  the 
key  to  its  true  interpretation.  And  hence  -we  may  say, 
in  the  first  place,  that  the  Hebrew  word  isna,  rendered 
create,  has  nothing  abstract  or  metaphysical  about  it. 
It  is  as  clearly  phenomenal  as  any  word  in  the  language. 
Its  primary  meaning  is  to  cut,  hence  to  shave,  shape, 
form,  or  fashion.  So,  also,  the  German  word  sehaffen, 
by  which  Luther  translates  it,  and  which  is  of  the  same 
root  with  schahen,  and  the  Belgic  schaeven,  means  to 
shave,  cut,  and  hence  to  make,  or  fabricate.  It  is  that 
idea  of  making,  which  consists  in  cuttings,  separations, 
and  arrangements  by  division  of  what  previously  exists 
in  a  confused  and  disorderly  state,  rather  than  a  combin- 
ing or  a  constructing  of  new  and  scattered  elements. 
No  reader  can  avoid  seeing  how  applicable  this  is  to  the 
greater  part  of  the  process  ;  especially  the  work  of  the 
first  five  days,  or  until  we  come  to  the  creation  of  man. 
Almost  everything  before  is  a  division,  an  elimination, 

*Neander  has  admirably  expressed  it  in  his  exposition  of 
the  Gnostic  opinions  on  creation.  "  In  the  important  passage, 
Hebrews  xi,  3,  that  act  of  the  spirit  denoted  under  the  name 
of  faith — whereby  the  spirit  rises  above  the  whole  linked  chain 
of  causes  and  effects  in  the  phenomenal  world  to  an  almighty 
creative  word  as  the  ground  of  all  existence — is  opposed  to  the 
contemplation  of  the  world  by  the  sense  acknowledging  no- 
thing higher  than  the  connected  chain  of  things  in  the  world 
of  appearance. ^^ 


BEGINNING    OF    CREATION.  49 

a  bringing  of  one  thing  from,  or  out  of,  another.  K'ja, 
seems  also  to  borrow  some  shades  of  its  meaning  from 
the  kindred  root  "i:?a,  which  has  its  sense  of  cleansing^ 
or  purification,  from  the  same  primary  ideas  of  separat- 
ing^ divid{7ig,  2^u7'ifging,  etc.  So  creation  is  a  clearing 
up,  a  cleansing,  a  purifying,  a  bringing  into  order. 

We  may  call  that  a  key-passage  to  the  best  under- 
standing of  the  radical  nature  of  any  word,  where  both 
the  larger  and  the  more  specific  applications  seem  to 
unite  in  the  same  general  image.  For  such  a  passage 
we  would  direct  the  reader  to  Joshua,  xvii,  18  ;  where, 
m  dividing  the  promised  land  among  the  tribes,  it  is  said 
to  the  sons  of  Joseph  — "  The  mountain  shall  be  thine, 
for  it  is  a  forest,  fi^Nnai,  and  thou  shalt  clear  it" — literally 
cut  it,  hew  it,  separate  it,  clear  it  up.  The  reference  is 
to  the  operation  of  bringing  into  order  waste  forest  land, 
or  turning  the  chaos,  the  tohu  and  bohu  of  the  wilderness, 
into  a  well  arranged,  cultivated,  and  life-supporting  terri- 
tory. The  primary  sense  of  the  Latin  creare,  whence 
our  word  create,  is  somewhat  different,  though  still  pre- 
senting the  same  general  idea  of  gradual  process  (that 
is  process  by  steps  or  degrees),  or  that  production  of 
one  thing  from  another  which  we  call  natural  in  distinc- 
tion from  sudden  and  unconnected  operations.  This 
primary  sense  of  o-eare  is  growth,  as  is  more  clearly  seen 
in  the  derivative  cresco,  and  as  it  manifests  itself  in  our 
words  increase,  increment,  etc.  The  generative  sense  is 
still  more  plainly  exhibited  in  the  compounds,  whence 
our  words  procreate,  recreate,  concreate,  etc.  To  go  still 
farther  back  into  the  very  elements  of  the  primitive 
language,  there  cannot  be  a  doubt  but  that  the  Latin 
and  the  Anglo-Saxon  words  have  each  the  same  cognate 


50  WORK   OF  THE  HRST  DAY. 

radicals  CR,  and  GR,  and  that,  therefore,  CBqo  and 
GRow  present  originallj  the  same  conception,  being,  in 
this  respect  also  idential,  at  the  root,  with  ^vdig,  the  Greek 
word  for  nature.*  There  will  be  a  better  place  for  dwell- 
ing on  this  in  another  part  of  the  argument.  But  some 
attention  is  given  to  it  here,  to  show  how  much  we  may 
be  misled  bj  carrying  back  into  an  ancient  word  a  purely 
modern  conception.  The  modern  metaphysical  sense  of 
create — that  is,  of  making  sometldng  out  of  nothing, 
comes  entirely  from  later  use  in  which  the  primitive 
image  has  fallen  away.  We  do  not,  at  all,  deny  the  fact 
of  such  creation  out  of  nothing,  but  it  is  a  metaphysical 
tenet  to  which  we  are  driven  by  the  demands  of  the  rea- 
son. There  is,  too,  an  expression  of  it  in  other  parts  of 
the  Bible,  but  even  then  by  means  of  imagery,  that  is  by 
translating  it  into  a  phenomenal  conception,— as  it  is 
most  sublimel}'  said,  Isaiah  xlvii,  13 — ■"'  I  call  them,  they 
stand  up  togethery  But  it  is  not  taught  here,  we  think, 
nor  meant  to  be  taught  here  in  these  simple  yet  grand 
phenomenal  modes  of  speech.  The  etymological  concep- 
tions vary  in  different  languages,  but  the  fact  they  repre- 
sent remains  the  same  for  all.  It  is  the  fashiomng,  con- 
structing, forming,  or  making  of  something  which  already 
exists  to  be  formed,  fashioned,  etc.,  and  is  brought  into 
order  through  steps  or  degrees  following  each  other  in  a 
regular  methodical  series.  In  the  Hebrew  and  German 
it  is  imaged  to  the  mind  as  a  cutting,  separating,  divid- 
ing process.     In  the  English  and  Latin  (creo,  create, 

*For  the  primary  significance  of  the  Latin  creo,  compare 
such  passages  as  Yirgil,  Georg.  II,  9, 

Principio  arboribus  varia  est  natura  crcandis. 


BEGINNING   OF   CREATION.  51 

creseo,  recreo^^rocreo)^  it  is  to  groiv^  or  cau%e  to  grow, 
to  renew,  to  generate,  to  increase.  In  the  Greek  of  the 
New  Testament,  it  is  to  build  (xrl^w  xnVj^)  ;  as  in  Mark, 
xiii,  19 — "  From  the  beginning  of  the  creation  wMcli 
(rod  created  —  jctiVsw^ — -hri(fsv  —  the  building  which 
God  built:' 

The  heavens  and  the  earth.  No  words  can  be  more 
strictly  phenomenal  than  these,  not  only  in  the  Hebrew 
but  in  every  other  ancient  tongue.  They  denote  not 
essence,  nor  power,  nor  cause,  nor  philosophical  idea,  nor 
scientific  hypothesis,  but  simply  appearances,  "  things 
that  are  seen,''  the  visible  mundus  just  as  it  presents 
itself  to  the  eye.  Gesenius  derives  0:^-^  from  an  Arabic 
root,  fi)3»,  unused  in  the  Hebrew  and  signifying  to  be 
high.  TVe  cannot  resist  the  impression  that  it  has  some 
connection  with  the  common  verb  b^w,  signifying  to  be 
astonished,  to  be  filled  with  wonder,  awe,  or  admiration. 
A  kindred  connection  of  etymological  ideas  gave  rise, 
perhaps,  to  that  beautiful  portion  of  the  Greek  mytho- 
logy that  made  Iris,  or  the  rainbow,  the  daughter  of 
Thaumas,  or  Wonder,  as  we  read  in  the  Theogonia  of 
Hesiod,  266.  The  wondrous  height  would  combine  the 
two  ideas,  and  this  is  elsewhere  expressed  by  another 
word,  taih,  as  in  that  sublime  personification,  Habakkuk, 
iii,  10,  where,  instead  of  the  common  rendering,  "  the 
deep  uttered  his  voice  and  lifted  up  his  hajids  on  high," 
it  should  be,  as  Luther  has  it,  die  Hohe  hob  die  Hande  auf , 
—  the  height  (or  heavens)  lift  up  its  hands,  in  evident 
contrast  with  the  abyss  that  utters  its  deep-toned  voice 
below,  like  the  solemn  bass  in  the  universal  chorus.  So 
also.  Job,  XXV,  "Z, — ''  He  maketh  peace  in  his  high  places 
— in  his  highest  heavens." 


52  WORK    OF   THE   FIRST   DAY. 

The  primitive  image  suggested  by  tlie  word,  or  which 
gave  birth  to  the  word,  was  doubtless  that  of  the  atmo- 
spherical heavens,  or  the  sky,  expressed  more  directly 
to  the  vision,  but  with  less  of  wondering  emotion,  by  tho 
Latin  coelum  from  the  Greek  xorxov,  and  the  Saxon 
heaven  (from  heave^  lieafen^  heoferi)  signifying  the  rising 
sivell,  and  hence  the  hoUozv,  the  vault,  or  arch.  Cotem- 
porary  with  this,  or  early  following  it,  must  have  been 
the  same  conception  expanded  to  the  astronomical  heav- 
ens, and  giving  rise  afterwards  to  the  notion  of  a  second 
heaven,  or  heaven  of  heavens,  as  the  phrase  is  employed 
by  Solomon,  1  Kings,  viii,  and  other  writers  of  the  Old 
Testament,  to  express  the  divine  immensity.  A  still 
farther  widening  of  the  conception  brings  in  the  thought 
of  a  "third  heaven,"  above  the  astronomical  heavens, 
and  viewed  as  the  peculiar  residence  of  the  divine  glory. 
The  earliest  Scripture  allusion  to  this  is  probably  that  in 
Psalms,  viii,  2,  where  the  writer,  though  contemplating 
the  divine  greatness  in  the  moon  and  stars,  would  seem 
to  have  a  thought  transcending  them,  when  he  says — 
"  Thou  hast  set  thy  glory, ^^  not  in  (a  sense  which  the 
Hebrew  preposition  cannot  have)  but  "  above  the  heav- 
ens.^^  It  suggests  to  us  the  To-Tro^  vits^ov^oiMiog,  of  which 
Plato  speaks  in  the  Phaedrus,  or  the  super-celestial 
region.  It  is  that  transcendent  altitude  of  glory  men- 
tioned in  Psalms,  cxiii,  6,  whence  God  is  said  to  stoop 
down  to  see  the  heavens,  as  well  the  earth — "  ITe  hum- 
bleth  himself  to  behold  the  things  that  are  in  heaven  and 
in  the  earth. '^^ 

In  this  verse  in  Genesis,  however,  the  easiest  suppo- 
sition is,  that  the  writer  has  mainly  in  view  the  sky,  or 
atmospherical  heavens,  the  creation  of  which  is  more  fully 


BEGINNING   OF    CREATION.  53 

given  in  the  work  of  the  second  day.  In  the  account  of 
the  fourth  period  there  might  seem  to  be  some  reference 
to  the  astronomical  heavens,  but  even  there,  we  think, 
the  things  described  are  rather  the  appearanees  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  in  our  own  shy^  their  disposition  in  the 
firmament,  their  relation  to  our  earth,  and  the  manifest- 
ing of  that  relation.  In  other  words,  it  is  not  their  crea- 
tion in  themselves,  which  is  thus  set  forth,  neither  is  it 
their  nature,  their  scientific  entities,  but  their  coming 
out  and  taking  their  places  in  the  visible  heaven  among 
the  "  things  that  are  seen^^  or  ''-that  do  appear^''  to  our 
world. 

Both  the  earth  and  visible  heavens  thus  regarded  may 
be  denoted,  and  frequently  are  denoted,  by  the  single 
Hebrew  word  Vari.  This  corresponds  very  nearly  to  the 
earliest  sense  of  the  Latin  mundus,  as  denoting  the  visi- 
ble sphere,  or  hemisphere,  made  apparently  by  the  earth 
and  the  enclosing  sky,  although  it  is  often  used  of  the 
earth,  just  as  we  employ  the  Saxon  ivorld  in  the  same 
limited  manner — our  word,  too,  having  a  similar  pheno- 
menal meaning  in  its  etymological  derivation  from  roll  or 
ivhirl.  The  larger  sense  of  V^n  is  shown  in  its  being 
generally  used,  in  the  Hebrew  poetry,  in  the  closing  or 
amplifying  part  of  the  parallelism.  Thus,  in  Psalms, 
xxiv,  1, — "  The  earth  and  its  fullness-^ the  world  (the 
tehel)  and  all  that  dwell  therein."  Psalms,  xcvi,  13, — 
"  For  He  cometh  to  judge  the  earth;  He  will  judge  the 
tvorld  in  righteousness."  See,  also.  Psalms,  xxxiii,  8  ; 
xcviii,  9.  In  the  Episcopal  Psalter  version  of  Psalms, 
xcviii,  7,  it  is  very  appropriately  rendered  ''  the  round 
world.^'     It  is  sometimes  joined  with  v^n,  as  in  Prov. 


54  WOKK   OF  THE  FIRST   DAY. 

viii,  31,  Job,  xxxvii,  12, — "  the  world  of  the  earth"— 
that  is,  the  world  which  encloses  the  earth,  like  the  Latin 
orhis  tcrrarum,  except  that  the  Hebrew  expresssion  is  to 
be  taken  more  in  a  meridional  or  superterrene,  than  in  a 
horizontal  aspect.  Compare  with  this,  also.  Psalms,  xc, 
2,  Varii  p.5<,  —  or,  "  ever  thou  hadst  formed  the  earth  and 
the  worUy  where  the  conception  evidently  requires  it  to 
mean  something  beyond  or  more  extended  than  the  earth. 
This  is,  too,  the  image,  1  Samuel,  ii,  8, — "For  the  Lord's 
are  the  foundations  of  the  earthy  and  He  hath  set  the 
^vorld  (or  tehel)  over  them." 

We  would  only  remark  farther,  on  the  word  heavens, 
that  its  dual  number  in  the  Hebrew  seems  to  present  a 
remarkable  feature.  It  would  mean  literally  the  two 
heavens,  or  the  double  heavens  ;  and  might,  perhaps,  be 
regarded  as  primarily  denoting  a  higher  and  lower 
sphere.  But  this  would  be  too  abstract,  or  rather,  not 
enough  phenomenal  for  a  first  conception.  It  more 
probably  arose  from  the  idea  of  a  heaven  above  and  a 
heaven  beneath  us,  or  of  one  double  heaven  partly  above 
and  partly  beneath  us.  To  a  thoughtful  mind,  (and  in 
this  earliest  gazing  of  the  soul  upon  nature,  all  humanity 
must  have  been  thoughtful,  serious,  full  of  meditative 
wonder),  such  would  have  been  a  very  natural  and 
prompt  reflection  from  the  phenomena  of  the  rising  and 
disappearance  of  the  sun.  This  is  probably  the  image, 
Psalms,  xix,  4, — "  In  all  the  earth  hath  gone  out  their 
line,  and  their  speech  even  to  the  end  of  the  ivorW 
(or  tebel).  '''For  there^^ — that  is  in  the  ending  of  the 
tebel,  or  where  it  appears  to  end — "  hath  He  set  a  tent 
or  tahernacle  for  the  sun.^^     The  conception  is  the  most 


// 


BEGINNING  OF    CREATION.  55 

natural  that  can  be  imagined  whether,  for  the  earlier  or 
the  later  men — 

The  sua  that  sets  upon  the  sea 
We  follow  in  his  flight. 

The  tent,  or  tabernacle,  of  the  Psalmist  would  be  the 
heavens,  or  tebel,  or  ivorld  below,  in  which  the  sun  seems 
to  retire,  as  it  were,  to  spend  the  night,  and  from  whence 
he  comes  forth  in  the  new  morning  of  the  east  like  a  ; 
bridegroom  from  his  curtained  chambers,  or  as  a  refreshed 
hero  to  run  his  daily  race.  The  reader  may  think  that 
these  illustrations  are  taking  us  out  of  the  regular  track 
of  the  argument ;  but  we  cannot  avoid  referring  also  to 
Ecclesiastes,  i,  5  ;  where  there  is  the  same  thought  of  a 
complete  solar  revolution,  and  the  consequent  conception 
of  a  subterranean  or  antipodal  vault,  arch,  sky,  or  heaven^ 
in  which  the  sun's  real  or  apparent  track  must  lie.  We 
give  it  in  the  vivid  conciseness  of  the  Hebrew, — "  Rises 
the  sun,  and  sets  the  sun,  and  to  his  place  again,  panting, 
rising,  there  is  he."  The  reader  will  have  no  difficulty 
here  in  separating  the  poetical  from  the  purely  pheno- 
menal. We  cannot,  however,  help  remarking  that  in 
the  Hebrew  tiJ^vi  (panting)  we  have  suggested  the  later 
classical  image  of  the  quick-breathing,  though  unwearied 
steeds  of  Phoebus.  No  scholar  can  avoid  calling  to  mind 
the  lines  of  Virgil,  v,  738, 

Torquet  medio  s  nox  humida  cursua 
Et  me  esevus  equis  Oriens  aflia\  it  anhelis. 


CHAPTER  YIL 


WORK   OP    THE   FIRST   DAY.      THE   CHAOS. 

The  connecting  particle  between  the  first  verse  and  the  second. — 
ToHU  AND  BOHU.— Was  the  chaos  a  part  of  the  Mosaic  creation  ? — 
What  was  the  chaos  ? — Milton — Ovid. — The  darkness.— The  abyss. — 
The  ruah  elohim. — Merachepeth,  the  Hebrew  word  for  the  spirit's 
agency. — Its  primary  pulsatile  or  throbbing  sense. — Ancient  myth  of 
the  egg, 

"For  the  earth  was  without  form  and  void,  and  dark- 
ness was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep.  And  the  spirit  of 
Crod  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters.^^  Our  common 
version  has  "and"  instead  of /or,  as  the  connecting 
particle.  The  difference  may  seem  slight,  and  yet  there 
may  be  connected  with  it  quite  an  important  modification 
of  the  general  sense.  The  Hebrew  is  very  scanty  in  its 
conjunctions,  and  therefore  the  particle  (Van)  is  often 
employed,  not  only  to  denote  sequence  or  connection  in 
order  of  time,  but  to  show  the  ground,  reason,  or  motive, 
for  what  is  said.  In  one  view  of  the  passage,  the  first 
verse  contains  an  action  separate  from  those  that  follow ; 
in  another,  it  only  expresses  the  same  events  in  a  con- 
densed titular  form.  According  to  this  latter  interpre- 
tation, the  conjunction  shows  the  ground  or  reason  of  the 
proceeding.  In  the  beginning  God  created,  that  is,  fash- 
ioned, formed,  reduced  to  order.  And  why  ?  Because 
the  earth  which  was  to  be  created  was  then  without  form 
and  void.  It  was  a  fit  subject  for  such  a  process.  On 
the  other  supposition,  the  conjunction  would  seem  quite 


THE   WORK    OF   THE   FIRST   DAY.      THE   CHAOS.      57 

unnatural,  and  could  only  be  defended  on  the  general 
ground  that  these  particles  m  Hebrew  may  often  denote 
the  slightest  transitions — in  the  style  of  the  narrative  as 
well  as  in  the  order  of  the  events. 

'''  Was  without  form.''^  We  cannot  lay  much  stress 
on  the  scanty  Hebrew  tenses,  but  unless  the  context 
forbids,  it  may  just  as  well  be  understood  in  the  praeter 
past; — "  and  the  earth  had  been  without  form  and  void." 
How  long,  no  one  can  know ;  for  the  account  does  not 
deign  to  give  us  any  information.  Even,  however,  as 
commonly  rendered,  the  substantive  verb  certainly  seems 
to  imply  the  existence,  in  some  elemental  way,  of  the 
mass  or  matter  on  which  this  creative  work  was  then 
beginning  to  take  place.  And  the  earth,  at  that  time, 
or  that  beginning,  was  without  form  and  void.  It  was 
tohit  and  bohu,  confusion  and  emptiness,  or  as  Luther 
admirably  renders  it,  wUste  und  leer,  ivaste  and  desola- 
tio7i.  The  Vulgate  translates  it,  inanis  et  vacua.  In 
this  state,  it  was  not  a  creation,  if  we  can  place  any  reli- 
ance on  the  clearest  primitive  sense  of  words ;  for  the 
Hebrew,  as  well  as  the  Latin  and  English  radicals,  pre- 
sents, as  we  have  shown,  the  very  opposite  ideas.  How 
it  came  in  such  a  condition,  no  one  can  say.  Whether 
it  was  the  result  of  a  progress,  or  a  deterioration,  we 
have  no  means  of  knowing,  either  from  nature  or  from 
revelation.  It  may  have  been,  at  some  time,  a  direct 
work  of  God,  or  it  may  have  been  produced  by  him 
through  a  causality  which  may  well  be  described  by  the 
word  natural.  If,  however,  we  are  right  in  our  philolo- 
gical view,  it  was  not,  in  either  way,  a  creation.  The 
ideas  associated  with  this  word  belong  wholly  to  the 
subsequent  process.     The  tohu  and  bohu  may  have  been 


68      THE   WORK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAY.      THE   CHAOS. 

a  rudimentary  chaos  which  had  never  yet  assumed  order 
— such  as  we  may  suppose  to  have  been  the  condition 
of  perhaps  many  an  elemental  world  —  or  it  may  have 
been  a  chaos  to  which  some  world  or  system  had  been 
reduced  from  some  previously  better  state.  It  may 
have  lain  long  in  ruins ;  it  may  have  gone  through  an 
immense  number  of  older  cycles  ;  or  it  may  be  that  it 
was  now  for  the  first  time  made  the  subject  of  a  a^eation, 
that  is,  according  to  the  Latin  word,  an  orderly  growing 
through  harmonious  laws,  or,  according  to  the  Hebrew 
conception,  a  seijarating^  a  dividing^  a  clearing  up,  a 
brmging  into  order,  an  arrangmg  of  outward  relations, 
by  which  it  comes  in  harmony  with  the  exact  measure- 
ments of  universal,  objective  time,  and  is  thus  prepared 
for  the  abode  of  life,  happiness  and  rationality. 

But  what,  then,  was  this  ancient  chaotic  condition  of 
our  planet  ?  We  know  only  as  Holy  Scripture  informs 
us.  Science  can  tell  us  nothing  about  it.  The  chasms 
that  part  us,  whether  wide  or  brief,  can  never  be 
securely  traversed  by  her  slow  moving  steps.  From  the 
other  side  of  the  wild  abyss,  and  across  the  intervening 
periods,  comes  wafted  to  us  by  the  breath  of  inspiration 
our  only  image,  and  that  human  mind  to  which  it  was 
first  revealed,  has  represented  this  image,  or  conception, 
to  other  human  minds,  by  those  two  Hebrew  words  in 
which  is  pictured  all  that  can  be  thought  or  imagined, 
or  understood,  of  this  primeval  mystery. 

It  was  tohu  and  hohu.  These  terms  do  not  often 
occur  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  yet  the  places  in 
which  they  are  found  are  such  as  to  give  their  meaning 
beyond  all  reasonable  doubt.  In  Deuteronomy,  xxxii, 
10,  the  first  is  used  of  the  waste,  wilderness,  or  deserty 


THE  WORK   OF   THE  FIRST  DAY.      THE   CHAOS.      59 

through  which  the  children  of  Israel  were  so  long  wan- 
dering. In  Job,  vi,  18,  it  denotes  the  condition  of  the 
streams  that  disappear  in  the  summer's  drought, — '''They 
go  up  (that  is,  they  evaporate,)  into  tohu^ — they  perish.''^ 
So,  also.  Job,  xii,  24,  "They  ivander  in  tohu  tvhere  there 
is  no  path y  In  Isaiah,  xxiv,  10,  it  is  applied  to  a  ru- 
ined city.  In  Isaiah,  xl,  17,  23,  xli,  29,  xlix,  4,  lix,  4, 
1  Samuel,  xii,  21,  it  is  used  to  denote  what  is  utterly 
vain,  formless,  worthless,  or  of  no  account.  Besides 
Gen.,  i,  2,  there  are  two  other  places  in  which  both  words 
occur  together.  They  thus  appear  in  a  most  remarkable 
passage,  (Jeremiah,  iv,  24,)  in  which  there  seems  to  be 
pictured  to  the  prophet's  vision  a  scene  that  is  almost  the 
reverse  of  the  creative  process.  In  this  strange  diorama 
the  world  would  appear  to  be  going  back  again  into  the 
void  and  formless  period.  The  mountains  are  unsetthng  • 
the  hills  move  to  and  fro ;  man  is  gone  ;  bird  and  beast 
have  fled,  and  are  to  be  seen  no  more.  The  representa- 
tion strongly  suggests  Campbell's  and  Byron's  vision  of 
the  Last  Man,  some  features  of  which  might  seem  to 
have  been  drawn  from  this  very  passage.  The  verse 
we  have  cliiefly  in  view  may  be  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of 
back  ground  to  the  whole  picture, — "/  loohed  upon  the 
earth  and  it  ivas  tohu  and  hohu;  2  looked  to  the  heavens 
and  they  no  more  gave  their  light. ''^ 

"  'Tvvas  chaos  come  again, 
Where  nature  ends, — his  dark  pavilion  spread 
Wide  on  the  wasteful  deep  ;  mth  whom  enthroned 
Sat  sable- vested  Night,  eldest  of  things, 
The  consort  of  his  reign." 

The  other  passage,  Isaiah,  xxx,  11,  is  of  more  account, 
from  its  etymological  suggestions.  Speaking  of  the  deso» 
lation  of  Idumea,  the  Prophet  says,—  "  From  generation 


60      THE  WORE   OF  THE  FIRST  DAY.      THE   CHAOS, 

to  generation  shall  it  be  waste ;  for  ever  and  ever  shall 
no  one  pass  through  it ;  for  He  will  stretch  upon  it  the 
line  of  confusion  and  the  stones  of  emptiness'^  —  the  line 
of  tohu  and  the  stones  of  hohu.  Line  is  the  well-known 
term  of  measurement ;  stones  denote  the  weights  of  the 
balance  ;  as  in  Proverbs,  xvi,  11, — ^'  A  just  balance  and 
weight  are  the  Lord's ;  and  his  work  are  all  the  stones 
of  the  cup."  See,  also,  Deuteronomy,  xxv,  13.  We 
have,  then,  the  two  essential  ideas  which  are  so  well 
given  in  our  common  version  of  Genesis,  i,  2, —  without 
form  and  void, —  one  expression  referring  to  utter  irreg- 
ularity of  dimension  and  outward  extent,  the  other  to  the 
deficiency  of  gravity,  denoting  not  so  much  an  absolute 
as  a  relative  want  of  weight — in  other  words,  a  fluid  or 
rarified  condition  with  an  absence  of  all  solidity  and  cohe- 
sion, or  it  may  be,  a  huge  nebulosity  that  had  been  float- 
ing through  space  for  milHons  and  millions  of  years,  if 
any  such  term  can  be  employed  of  that  which  has  no 
inward  or  outward  measures  of  time. 

Its  extent  may  have  been  vastly  greater  than  that 
which  the  earth  afterwards  occupied  when  created,  that 
is,  reduced  to  order.  But  aside  from  any  such  thought 
of  absolute  extent,  there  is  a  natural  connection  between 
the  conception  of  vastness  and  that  of  desolation  and  dis- 
order. Hence  the  Latin  vastus,  vasto,  vastare,  (whence 
our  waste,)  presents  both  images  as  alike  primary.  The 
same  appears,  also,  in  the  Latin  immanis,  the  vast,  the 
immeasurable,  as  well  as  the  savage,  the  wild,  the  deso- 
late. The  force  of  such  a  conception  does  not  depend 
merely  on  irregularity  or  unmeasurableness  of  outward 
bound,  but  upon  the  w^ant  of  inward  order  and  creative 
division.     Everything   appears    more  immense,  and  is 


THE   WORK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAY.      THE   CHAOS.      61 

conceived  of  as  more  immense,  which  presents  to  the  eye 
or  the  imagination  no  internal  arrangements  or  partitions 
on  vfhich  they  can  rest  and  find  rehef.  Hence  the  vast- 
ness  of  the  wilderness,  and  the  still  more  desolate  vast- 
ness  of  the  ocean  and  the  desert  — 

"inimitable,  without  bound. 
Without  division — where  length,  breadth,  and  height, 
And  time,  and  place  are  lost." 

But  the  chaos,  whatever  may  have  been  its  origin  and 
history,  was  not  creation,  or  any  part  of  the  creation. 
Milton,  with  more  of  philosophic  truth  than  epic  fancy, 
speaks  of  it  as 

"  Tho  womb  of  nature  and  perhaps  her  grave — 

The  dark  materials  to  create  more  worlds,  ^ 

By  God  ordained." 

Such  an  authority  may  be  esteemed  as  of  little  value 
in  questions  of  science  or  theology,  and  yet,  on  the  clos- 
est examination  of  the  Mosaic  account,  we  cannot  help 
thinking  that  our  great  bard  made  not  merely  a  poetical, 
but  a  true  and  Scriptural,  distinction,  when  he  separated 
the  chaos,  both  in  name  and  idea,  from  the  well-ordered 
world  that  afterward  arose, — 

"  As  yet  the  world  was  not,  and  chaos  wild 

Reigned  where  these  Heavens  now  roll,  where  earth  now  rests." 

There  are  the  same  ideas  connected  with  the  Greek 
word  Xao^c.  Its  derivation  from  x^?"  (x"^"'  X'^-'v"'  X^^l^^) 
presents  a  like  conception  of  a  gloomy  vastness.  There 
is  also  in  it,  as  used  both  by  poets  and  philosophers,  a 
similar  idea  of  formlessness,  but  with  more  of  a  meta- 
physical reference  to  inward  law  or  organization  than  to 
mere  outward  shape.    ^'In  the  beginning,"  says  Hesiod, 

*•  was  chaos" — the  immense  unformed  mass  in  which 

6 


62      THE   WORK   OF   THE   FIRST  DAY.      THE   CHAO&'. 

everything  lay  commingled ;  earth,  air,  fire  and  water^ 
light  and  darkness,  cold  and  heat,  not  yet  parted  from 
each  other — 

Rudis  indigestaque  moles — 

a  rude  unorganized  bulk — as  Ovid  describes  it  to  us^  in 
terms  so  nearly  corresponding  to  those  of  the  Bible,  that 
we  can  hardly  help  regarding  his  account  as  but  the  echo 
of  the  old  tradition.  Umur ought ^  invisible  (^dy.ara(^xsva(jTog 
do^aros')  is  the  Septuagint  version; — invisible,  because  as 
yet  possessed  of  none  of  that  distinction  and  partition  of 
feature  which  are  as  essential  to  perfect  vision  as  light 
itself, — or  invisible,  because  yet  enveloped  in  that  prime- 
val darkness  which  Hesiod  represents  as  the  oldest 
daughter  of  chaos,  'Axarao'xsuao'ro^  is  but  the  negative 
of  the  Hebrew  word; — unwrougJd,  that  is, — uncreated. 
^^And  darkness  ivas  tipofi  the  face  of  the  deep.''^ 
Creation  had  not  yet  commenced.  Darkness  still  rested 
upon  the  vast  abyss.  There  was  no  light  upon  it  from 
abroad,  and  none  had  been  eliminated  from  within, 
because  it  was  as  yet  undisturbed  by  the  quickening  or 
creative  power.  The  tehom,  (b^nn),  or  deep  is  evidently 
the  same  with  the  tohu  Qir\v\^  mentioned  before.  It  is, 
indeed,  etymologically  different,  and  yet  the  word,  as 
here  used,  can  only  be  another  name  for  the  chaos, 
although  afterwards  employed  to  denote  other  objects 
which  the  imagination  might  regard  as  presenting  some 
pictorial  resemblance  to  the  primeval  waste.  Thus  it  is 
applied  to  any  great  tumultuous  waters,  as  in  Exodus, 
XV,  5,  8;  Psalms,  xxxiii,  7,  Ixxviii,  15, —  to  the  great 
sea.  Psalms,  xxxvi,  T;  Amos,  vii,  7, — -and  more  espe- 
cially to  the  supposed  or  real  abyss  inside  the  earth,  as 


THE  DARKNESS.   THE  ABYSS.         63 

being  nearer  to  the  original  image,  and  on  the  ground, 
perhaps,  of  its  being  regarded  as  the  confined  remains 
of  the  old  watery  chaos.  We  have  this  sense,  Psalms, 
Ixxi,  20 ;  Job,  xxviii,  14,  and  in  the  account  of  the  flood, 
Genesis,  vii,  2,  where  it  is  said  "  the  foimtains  of  the 
great  deep  were  broken  wp." 

In  the  Septuagint  it  is  well  rendered,  in  this  place,  by 
the  word  a.-SuCCoj,  the  ahi/ss,  from  (a)  privative,  and 
(3v(f (fog  (3v^6^,  or  (Sa&og  (Saxon  bottoni),  presenting,  in  this 
way,  the  same  conception  as  tohu,  the  lyieasureless^  the 
unfathoyndble.  Before  this,  as  we  have  said,  or  for  ages 
before  this,  it  may  have  been  an  immense  floating  nebu- 
losity, or  part  of  some  still  larger  nebulosity,  but  at  this 
period  it  is  a  wide  fluid  mass,  or  waste  of  water,  without 
a  shore,  without  a  bottom,  without  a  sky  above,  or  any 
terminating  solid  bound. 

And  the  spirit  of  Grod  brooded  upon  the  face  of  the 
waters.  Here  then  we  have  the  principium,  the  begin- 
ning of  the  creation,— of  that  creation,  we  mean,  which 
is  recorded  in  the  opening  chapter  of  our  Bibles.  This 
moving  or  brooding  of  the  spirit  was  the  primeval  act. 
Hardly  any  reader,  we  would  think,  could  mistake  the 
force  of  the  expression  thus  standing  by  itself.  But, 
when  we  compare  such  passages  as  Psalms,  xxxiii,  6 ; 
Job,  xxxiii,  4 ;  Genesis,  vi,  3 ;  Job,  xxvi,  13 ;  Isaiah, 
xxxiv,  16,  there  would  seem  to  be  hardly  room  for  a 
doubt,  that  this  Ruah  Elohim,  or  Breath  of  God,  is  truly 
the  going  forth  of  the  divine  power  energizing  in  nature, 
and  the  source  of  the  vegetable  and  animal,  as  well  as  the 
rational  and  moral  life.  It  is  called  7'uah  (wind  or 
breath}  not  on  account  of  its  supposed  materiality,  but 
because  this  substance  (the  air)  would  be  to  the  early 


64       THE  RUAH  ELOHIM.      THE  BROODING  SPIRIT. 

mind  the  best  conceptional  representative  of  the  immate- 
rial power,  whether  regarded  as  the  divine  or  human 
spirit.  Nothing  in  nature  would  be  more  mysterious. 
Although  belonging  to  the  world  of  sense,  nothing  would 
be  more  suggestive  of  something  beyond  it.  It  is  felt,  but 
not  seen.  It  is  all-pervading,  and  yet  is  known  only  in  its 
effects.  Men  "  hear  the  sound  thereof,  but  cannot  tell 
whence  it  cometh  nor  whither  it  goeth."  So  is  it  with 
the  immaterial  spirit,  only  in  a  higher  degree,  and  hence 
the  analogy  which  has  led  to  the  use  of  this  or  a  corre- 
sponding term  to  express  the  same  conception  in  all  the 
primitive  languages. 

Some  interpreters,  however,  have  been  inclined  to 
take  riiah  here  in  the  sense  alone  of  wind,  and  the 
divine  name  as  a  magnifying  epithet,  or  as  used  hyperbo- 
lically,  of  whatever  is  highest  or  greatest  of  its  kind.  It 
was  a  wind,  they  say,  a  wind  of  God,  meaning  a  mighty 
wind,  just  as  the  expression,  ^lountain  of  Crod,  Psalms, 
Ixviii,  16,  or,  river  of  Crod,  Psalms,  Ixv,  10,  means  a 
most  lofty  mountain,  or  a  most  glorious  stream.  In  the 
same  way  the  earliest  Greek  poets  seem  to  have  used 
the  epithets  dsTog,  61o^,  &s(firs(fios,  etc.,  of  anything  vast  or 
wonderful, —  as  in  the  IHad,  1,  s)g  aXu  d7av,  to  the  divine 
sea.  But,  hoAvever,  such  poetical  or  hyperbolical  use 
may  have  come  in,  in  later  times,  we  cannot  well  suppose 
it  to  have  obtained  in  so  early  a .  stage  of  language,  or 
in  respect  to  so  early  an  event.  In  the  cases  referred  to, 
it  is  simply  the  natural  poetically  amplified  by  epithets 
derived  from  the  supernatural.  But  here,  if  we  may 
look  any  where,  is  the  divine  power  per  se.  It  was  an 
act  above  nature,  a  beginning  of  nature,  or  a  beginning 
in  nature  of  a  new  order  of  events, — a  new  energy  that 


THE   RUAH   ELOHIM.      THE   BROODING   SPIRIT.       65 

never  could  have  been  developed  out  of  the  antecedent 
chaos. 

If  it  was  a  wind  in  the  usual  sense,  still  it  must  have 
been  a  wind  employed  by  God  as  his  agent.  But  why 
take  this  process  to  avoid  that  more  obvious  spiritual 
interpretation,  which  connects  itself  so  easily  with  the 
most  common  and  familiar  use  of  the  phrase  Ruah 
Elohim  in  so  many  passages  of  the  Old  Testament  ?  If 
it  ever  means  the  Divine  Spirit,  the  Divine  Life,  in  the 
higher  sense,  (and  who  can  read  the  Scriptures  and  have 
any  doubt  on  that  point  ?)  certainly  this,  of  all  others,  is 
the  place  where  we  should  expect  such  a  significance  of 
the  terms.  If  the  Divine  Spirit  is  not  occupied  in  crea- 
tion, where  could  we  reasonably  look  for  any  manifesta- 
tion of  its  action  ? 

Before  this,  there  had  only  been,  in  the  chaotic  mass, 
what  might  be  called  the  dead  force  of  cohesion — and 
that,  too,  of  the  feeblest  kind — or  the  mere  outivard  force 
of  a  gravitating  tendency  towards  some  other  bodies; 
but  now  thgre  is  an  imvard  power — a  separating,  arrang- 
ing, selecting,  organic  power — which  may  be  regarded 
as  the  beginning  of  life,  although,  as  yet  exhibiting  itself 
in  the  chemical  aspect,  rather  than  the  higher  modes  in 
which  it  afterwards  energized.  The  first  efiect  of  the 
new  life  is  the  elimination  of  light.  This,  it  is  true,  is 
said  to  be  by  the  divine  command ;  and  yet  the  language 
clearly  suggests  the  thought  that  the  agitation,  or  brood- 
ing, of  the  Ruah  Elohim  upon  the  waters  was  directly 
concerned  in  its  production. 

An  exegetical  reason  why  ruah  cannot  be  interpreted 
of  the  winds,  is  derived  from  the  use  of  the  word  fisiiti^ 
(merahepheth.)     The  verb  never  means  to  bloWy  and  has 


66       THE   RUAH   ELOHIM.       THE   BROODINa   SPIRIT. 

no  connection,  either  in  its  primary  or  secondary  sense, 
with  any  of  the  well  known  phenomena  of  wind,  or  the 
direct  onward  motion,  such  as  might  seem  to  be  expressed 
by  our  translation,  moved  upon.  We  have  rendered  it 
brooded ;  or  it  might  be  translated,  hovered.  Either  of 
these  words  would  present  the  primary  image,  or  con- 
ception, better  than  the  term  in  our  common  version. 
Any  one  may  be  as  certain  of  its  meaning  as  the  best 
Hebrew  scholar,  by  just  turning  to  Deuteronomy,  xxxii, 
11, —  "  As  the  eagle  hovers^  or  broods,  over  its  young.^'' 
It  is  the  same  word  and  the  same  conception.  Hence 
Milton's  idea,  which,  although  in  poetry,  is  more  accu- 
rate than  our  prose  translation, — 

"Dove-like  sat  brooding  o'er  the  vast  abyss." 

Hence,  too,  the  idea  of  incubation  which  we  find  in 
almost  all  mythological  cosmogonies.  But  of  that,  in 
another  part  of  the  argument.  We  get  the  general  image 
from  Deuteronomy,  xxxii,  11 ;  but  by  comparing  it  with 
Jeremiah,  xxiii,  9,  we  arrive  at  the  more  inward  or  radi- 
cal conception  of  the  word — "  My  heart  is  broken  within 
me  ;  all  my  bones  quivered^''  ("JSh^i).  It  denotes,  prima- 
rily,  a /w^^mw^ —  a  tremulous  motion,  acting  and  react- 
ing—  a  vibrating] — an  undulating— a  communicating 
by  pulsation  or  throbbing — in  other  words,  that  concep- 
tion of  life  we  find  in  the  earliest  languages,  and  from 
which  the  highest  physiological  and  physical  science  is 
ever  deriving  its  most  expressive  technical  terms.  It  is 
the  same  elemental  process  on  the  great  scale  of  the 
earth's  commencing  organism,  that  is  exhibited  in  the 
types  and  processes  of  all  lesser  vivification. 

So  far,  we  have  only  followed  the  most  literal  exegesis. 
If  permitted,  however,  to  indulge  in  that  sober  specular 


THE  RUAH   ELOHIIM.      THE   BROODING    SPIRIT.      67 

tion  which  it  so  readily  suggests,  we  might  say,  that 
before  this,  the  chaos  was  a  mere  mass  acting,  and  acted 
upon,  mechmiiccdly  ;  now  it  is  beginning  to  be  a  nature 
strictly,  with  an  inward  law  and  life,  or  whatever  else  is 
implied  in  the  word  nature.  As  far  as  our  earth  is  con- 
cerned, this  new  energising  power  is  the  first  heating  of 
nature's  pulse,  the  first  throhUng  of  her  mighty  heart. 
Or,  to  change  the  metaphor,  yet  keep  as  its  ground  the 
same  primary  image,  the  tremulous  pulsations  denoted 
by  the  uatensive  piel  significance  of  the  Hebrew  verb, 
are  the  first  note  in  the  grand  diapason,  the  first  low 
trembhng  barytones  in  that  ascending  scale  of  harmonies 
that  were  to  terminate  at  last  m  Eden  and  humanity. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


WORK   OF   THE  PIRST   DAY.      THE   LIGHT. 

The  command  to  the  light.— Inteepeetation. — Was  it  the  first  origin 
.  OF  light  ?— Is  light  eternal  ?— God  dwelling  in  light.— The  light 
HIS  robe. — Milton. — Longinus. — Division  of  the  light  from  the  dark- 
NESS. — The  naming  of  the  light  and  the  darkness.— Day  and  night.— 
The  Hebrew  word  Yom. — Had  Moses  the  conception  of  a  solar  day 

-  OF,  twenty-four  hours  ? — No  trace  op  such  conception  in  any  subse- 
quent Hebrew  prose  or  poetry. 

'''And  G-od  said — Let  there  he  light ^  and  there  was 
lights  It  will  be  at  once  inferred  from  what  has  been 
said  before,  that  we  do  not  regard  this  as  denoting  the 
creation  of  light  for  the  first  time  as  an  absolute  substance. 
The  mention  of  the  previous  darkness  of  the  chaos  sug- 
gests a  simpler,  and  yet  a  no  less  interesting  and  sublime 
meaning.  And  God  said,  Let  there  he  light ^  and  light 
ivas  there. — Let  there  he  light  on  that  dark  chaos.  Or 
it  may  be  used,  as  the  word  light  is  sometimes  employed 
in  EngUsh,  for  an  adjective  —  Be  it  light^  and  light  it 
was.  This  was  the  first  separation  of  the  blended  ele- 
ments. The  most  etherial  form  of  matter  was  parted 
from  the  dark  watery  mass.  Light  was  the  first  born. 
The  language  would  indeed  suit  either  conception, — that 
of  a  first  creation,  or  of  an  evolving  or  manifestation, — 
and  either  might  stand  as  a  representative  of  the  ineffa- 
ble truth. 

In  fact  of  the  essence,  or  primal  force,  or  fount  of 
light,  we  know  nothing.     All  that  science  has  done  falls 


WORK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAY.       THE    LIGHT.  69 

infinitely  short  of  this.  All  that  it  has  to  say  of  rays, 
or  fluids,  or  vibrations,  or  undulations,  gives  us  only  the 
phenomenal  conditions  under  which  this  mysterious  sub- 
stance may  be  supposed  to  manifest  itself.  However 
paradoxical  it  may  sound,  yet  it  may  be  affirmed  that 
light  itself,  per  se,  is  invisible.  Its  primal  force,  or 
entity,  is  one  of  the  things  "  that  are  unseen^^  — "  that 
do  not  appear ;"  although  by  it  other  things  are  made  ) 
phenomenal,  or  manifest  to  our  senses.  -"  Knowest  thou  ' 
the  place  ivhere  light  divelleth,  that  thou  shoiildst  take 
it  to  its  bound,  or  understand  the  path  to  its  house'^  ? 
It  is  the  challenge  which  the  Almighty  makes  to  Job 
out  of  the  thundercloud ;  and  the  intelligent  child,  who 
first  sits  down  to  the  sacred  volume,  knows  as  much 
about  the  true  answer  as  the  most  scientific  man  of  the 
age.  What  is  light  ?  We  know  it  as  an  effect,  as  a 
sensation ;  we  analyse  the  phenomena  through  which  this 
"  unseen"  entity  manifests  itself,  or  "  appears^^  in  the 
world  of  sense ;  thus  far  has  science  travelled  towards 
the  far  distant  "  place  of  its  abode."  But  the  Bible 
tells  us  more  than  this.  With  a  sublimity  which  immear 
surablj^  transcends  all  science,  it  represents  light  as  the 
raiment  of  God.  "  Thou  clothest  thyself  with  light,  as 
with  a  garment. ^^  Psalms,  civ.  2.  "  Who  dwelleth  in 
light — in  light  unapproachahle  and  full  of  glory.''''  1 
Timothy,  vi.  16.  This  is  merely  a  figure,  it  may  be  said, 
but  then  it  is  a  figure  which  must  represent  some  unut- 
terable reality.  Other  things  are  invisible,  or  obscure, 
because  of  the  darkness  that  is  in  them,  or  in  the  perci- 
pient, but  God  is  invisible  because  of  his  transcendent 
brightness.  Or,  to  express  the  thought  in  another  form, 
in  comparison  with  "  the  glory  that  exceedeth"  the  very 


70  WORK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAY.      THE    LIGHT. 

"light  is  as  darkness."  Tiiere  would  seem  to  be  some- 
tking  of  this  thought  in  that  difficult  yet  remarkable 
declaration,  Job,  xxxvi,  30,  which  should  be  rendered, 
''He  spreadetli  His  light  about  Him^^  and  then  what  fol- 
lows may  be  taken  as  a  comparison,  — "  even  as  He  hath 
covered  the  roots  (or  hottoni)  of  the  sea.^^  In  contrast 
with  the  Divine  splendor,  even  light  itself  is  dark  as  the 
shadow  that  rests  upon  the  depths  of  the  ocean. 

"His  robe  is  the. light." 

Was  it  eternal,  then  ?  Did  it  thus  ever  form  the  Divine 
abode,  the  "  secret  place  of  the  Most  High,"  the  iner- 
most  Shekinah  in  which  God  dwells  ?  On  such  a  ques- 
tion we  would  not  turn  over  a  leaf  to  get  the  answer  of 
science  or  philosophy.  If  the  Scriptures  had  declared 
in  any  way  the  absolute  eternity  of  that  substance  whose 
motions  are  the  cause  of  vision  in  sentient  beings,  we 
should  have  had  no  hesitation  in  believing  it,  and  no 
fears  on  the  ground  of  any  supposed  pantheistic  ten- 
dency. But  they  tell  us  nothing  on  the  subject.  From 
the  glorious  similes,  however,  which  revelation  employs, 
as  well  as  from  the  rank  which  science  assigns  to  light, 
we  should  not  be  rash  in  regarding  it  as,  at  least,  among 
the  first  things  that  came  out  of  nonentity.  If  we  shrink 
from  declaring  it  to  be  absolutely  eternal,  still  may  we 
view  it  as  of  all  physical  entities  the  nearest  related  unto 
Deity— 

"  Offspring  of  Heaven,  first  born, 
Bright  effluence  of  bright  escence  increate  ; 
Whose  fountain  who  shall  tell!   Before  the  sun, 
Before  the  Heavens  thou  vs^ert,  and  at  the  voice 
Of  God  as  with  a  mantle  didst  invest 
The  rising  world  of  waters  dark  and  deep. 
Won  from  the  void  and  formless  infinite." 


WORK  OF  THE  FIRST  DAY.      THE    LIGHT.  71 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  primal  origination 
of  Hght,  the  ^Yhole  view  we  have  taken  of  this  account 
of  our  world's  creation  is  in  the  way  of  that  exegesis 
which  would  regard  this  primal  origin  as  being  here  set 
forth.  By  God's  command  it  slioyie  out  of  the  darkness, 
h  Tou  tfxoVou^c,  (as  the  Apostle*  paraphrases  the  passage 
in  Genesis),  and  shed  its  splendor  on  the  darkness ;  but 
there  is  nothing  which  gives  us  a  right  to  infer,  that  this 
was  the  first  time  of  its  ever  sJiinmg  out,  or  being  mani- 
fested, in  the  universe.  Neither  is  such  a  view  neces- 
sary for  preserving  the  sublimity  of  the  passage.  Be 
light,  or,  he  it  ligJit  on  that  dark  chaos,  and  light  ivas 
there.  Such  a  rendering  will  still  be  worthy  of  all  that 
admiration  with  which  it  was  regarded  by  one  of  the 
noblest  of  heathen  critics.  We  refer  to  Longinus,  in  his 
treatise  De  Sublimitate,  who  calls  Moses  "  no  common 
man,"  and  quotes  this  as  among  the  very  highest  exam- 
ples of  what  he  calls  greatness  of  style. 

And  Crod  divided  the  light  froyn  the  da7'7cness.  Here, 
too,  is  the  sense  of  the  Hebrew  words  sufiiciently  satisfied 
by  referring  them  directly  to  the  particular  shining  of 
the  light  upon  the  chaos.  "'^^'J^v!  is  only  a  more  specific 
apphcation  of  the  general  sense  of  ^i^a.  Here  is  the  first 
separation,  the  first  cidting,  or  cutting  out,  if  we  would 
ever  keep  before  our  minds  the  primary  force  of  the  cre- 
ative word.  The  work  is  no  longer  formless.  The  as 
yet  remaining  unorganized  mass,  and  the  hght  which 
envelopes  and  shines  upon  it,  now  form  two  distinct 
departments.  Or  the  division  may  be  one  of  time,  and 
may  refer  to  the  point  or  period  on  one  side  of  which 
was  the  light  and  on  the  other  the  darkness  ;  or  it  may 

*  2  Corinthianf,  iv.  6. 


72  WORK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAY.      THE   LIGHT. 

represent  the  separating  effect  of  light  itself,  like  an  act 
of  creation,  giving  form  and  outline  and  feature  to  that 
which  before  possessed  neither  division  nor  boundary, 
and  which  is  so  graphically  compared  (Job,  xxxviii,  14,) 
to  the  effect  of  the  seal  upon  the  clay. 

There  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  the  Koran  (Chap. 
113,)  which  we  cannot  help  regarding  as  ha\dng  been 
originally  suggested  by  this  language,  and  as  thus  pre- 
senting a  Mohammedan  or  Arabic  interpretation  of  its 
meaning, — '-^  I  fly  for  refuge  to  the  Lord  of  the  day 
hrectky  God  is  so  called  in  reference  to  the  first  morn- 
ing of  creation.  The  original  Arabic  word  preserves 
the  analogy  of  the  idea.  Like  n'^s  and  V^-:ari,  it  signifies 
a  cleaving^  a  cutting  out,  and  denotes,  says  Al  Bedawi, 
''the  proceeding  to  fight  from  the  darkness  of  privation." 
— See  Note  in  Sales'' s  Koran,  Qhaio.  113. 
I  And  Grod  called  the  light  day,  and  the  darkness  He 
'  called  night.  No  one  supposes  that  this  means  an  audible 
calling.  The  Fathers  understood  the  matter  as  well  as 
:  the  best  modern  critic.  It  was  not,  says  Gregory  of 
Nyssa,  an  articulate  sound,  but  an  expression  of  the 
Divine  will.  In  Scripture,  to  name  is  to  distinguish. 
It  denotes  here  a  continuation  of  what  is  expressed  in 
the  first  clause,  or  the  original  division  therein  indicated. 
The  word  n^j^,  He  called,  is  also  used  in  the  Bible  to 
denote  that  transcendent  act  by  which  divine  power  is 
exerted  in  nature,  or  upon  nature.  "  I  called  to  them, 
(Isaiah,  xlviii,  13,)  they  stood  up  together.''''  He  called 
aloud  to  the  light,  or  the  day,  and  it  awoke  from  its 
latent  state  among  the  slumbering  elements  of  chaos. 
Both  senses  may  be  here  united, —  the  calling  into  being, 
essentially,  or  the  calling  out  phenomenally  those  charac- 


WORK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAY.      THE   LIGHT.  73 

teristics  which  are  the  ground  of  all  denominational  lan- 
guage,— which,  in  every  tongue,  enter  into  the  radical 
conceptions  denoted  by  the  representative  word,  and  may 
therefore  be  most  appropriately  called  its  naming.  There 
is  no  difficulty  in  regarding  these  expressions,  day,  light, 
etc.,  as  borrowed  from  their  applications  at  a  much  later 
period,  and  carried  back  to  denote  the  ineffable  things 
they  most  resemble.  It  is,  however,  a  better  view,  as  we 
shall  attempt  to  show,  that  we  have  here  the  primary  idea 
of  the  word,  in  respect  to  its  nature  or  quaUty,  in  dis- 
tinction from  its  quantity.  A  day  is  not  so  much  that 
fixed  duration  which  is  afterwards  determined  by  settled 
modes  of  measurement,  as  a  periodical  time,  be  it  longer 
or  shorter,  marked  by  the  opposite  successions  of  light 
and  darkness,  or  what  may  be  supposed  to  be  analogous 
to  them. 

And  there  teas  an  evening  and  there  was  a  morning, 
—  one  day,  or  first  day.  This  is  the  most  simple  and 
literal  rendering  of  the  Hebrew,  and  in  the  right  view 
of  it  we  think  we  have  the  key  to  the  great  bibUcal 
question,  whether  these  are  indefinite  unmeasured  peri- 
ods, or  what  we  call  natural  days  of  twenty-four  hours. 
In  favor  of  the  former  opinion  there  has  been  drawn  an 
argument  from  the  Hebrew  use  of  the  word  t^y-^  (yom) 
for  any  period  of  time  presenting  a  completed  course  or 
unity  of  events  irrespective  of  precise  duration.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  at  all  of  such  usage.  It  belongs  to  the| 
Hebrew,  as  it  does  to  most  other  languages.  The  word 
for  day  is  much  more  frequently  used  in  this  manner, 
than  year  or  month.  But  this  is  by  no  means  the 
strongest  proof  of  the  position.  It  makes  it  'possible  that 
the  word  may  be  so  employed  here.     It  makes  it  even 


74  WORK   OP   THE   FIRST   DAY.      THE   LIGHT. 

highly  p7vhable,  when  we  take  into  view  the  pecuHar 
nature  of  the  events  recorded.  Still  there  is  another, 
and  a  better,  and  we  think  unanswerable,  argument  to 
be  derived  from  the  fact  that  in  this  stage  of  the  creative 
process  there  were  no  regular  phenomenal  measures  of 
time.  We  must  interpret  the  writer  in  consistency  Avith 
himself,  whether  we  suppose  him  inspired  or  not.  The 
revelation  is  made  to  us  through  the  conceptions  of 
Moses,  and  although  such  conceptions  are  not  binding  on 
us  as  the  absolute  truth,  yet  they  are  the  medium,  or 
one  stage  in  the  medium,  through  which  it  is  conveyed, 
and  by  whose  aid,  therefore,  it  must  be  exegetically 
studied.  On  either  view,  then,  we  must  look  for  a  har- 
mony of  representation  in  the  writer's  own  mind.  He 
certainly  could  not  have  had  in  his  thought  a  common 
day,  in  the  sense  of  one  measured  by  an  earthly  revolu- 
tion, or  by  the  a.pparent  circuit  of  the  sun.  Of  the  first, 
or  the  revolution  of  the  earth,  it  is  evident  he  had  no 
conception;  and  it  was  not  until  the  fourth  period, 
according  to  his  own  statement,  that  the  great  lumina- 
ries were  either  actually  created,  or  optically  lit  up  in 
the  heavens  to  be  signs  or  measures  of  seasons,  and  days, 
and  years, —  one  to  rule,  or  measure,  the  day,  and  the 
other  the  night.  This  unmeasured  period,  then,  what- 
ever its  length,  could  not  have  been  a  common  or  natural 
day,  as  we  call  it,  unless  arbitrarily  divided  without  any 
reference  to  measuring  celestial  phenomena.  Not  only 
are  there  wanting  the  most  important  elements  of  the 
thought,  as  connected  with  such  celestial  phenomena, 
but  what  is  left  of  the  conception  of  a  common  day  in  its 
mere  length,  is  of  such  a  kind  that  it  can  hardly  be  pre- 
sented  on   the   canvas   of  the   imaging   faculty.     For 


WORK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAY.      THE   LIGHT.  75 

nothing  is  more  difficult  to  conceive  of  than  simple 
determined  duration  in  the  absence  of  all  the  common 
measures  bj  which  it  is  determined. 

From  this  consideration  alone  we  may  saj,  with  a 
good  degree  of  confidence,  that  Moses  had  not  in  his 
mind,  in  his  thought,  in  his  conceptive  faculty,  any 
such  image.  He  had  just  what  he  has  given  to  us,  the 
idea  of  a  period  commencing  in  darkness  and  ending  in 
light,  a  bounded  period,  measured  by  chaos  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  birth  of  a  higher  organization  on  the  other, 
a  period  to  which  for  these  reasons  there  is  given  that 
name,  yom^  which  is  afterwards  used  of  the  cychcal 
solar  succession  of  light  and  darkness.  But  of  the  dura- 
tion of  this  day  he  has  not  told  us,  because  there  was  no 
revealed  conception  of  it  present  to  his  own  mind ;  for 
so  we  must  judge,  in  the  absence  of  all  opposing  proof. 
Here,  then,  beyond  all  question,  the  easy  and  unforced 
interpretation  is  on  the  side  of  the  indefinite  periods. 
We  must  say  that  we  never  saw  an  answer  to  it  that  did 
not  appear  far-fetched  and  unnatural.  What,  too,  would 
seem  to  add  strong  confirmation,  is  the  fact  that  in  the 
beginning  of  the  next  chapter,  the  whole  time  of  crea- 
tion, including  all  the  periods  in  one  completed  round  or 
course  of  events,  is,  on  this  account,  also  called  a  day — 
In  the  day  ivlien  the  Lord  made  the  heavens  and  the 
earth.  Of  this  great  day  of  days^  it  might  also  have 
been  said,  there  was  an  evening  and  a  morning.  It 
began  when  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  waters  ; 
it  ended  in  the  glorious  morning  of  Paradise.  Such  a 
use  of  yom,  or  day,  in  the  Bible,  may  be  shown  in  many 
other  passages,  but  this  is  the  more  remarkable  and  the 


76  WORK    OF   THE   FIRST   DAY.      THE    LIGHT. 

more  valuable  from  its  direct  comiection  with  the  Mosaic 
account. 

There  is  another  argument  to  which  we  cannot  help 
attaching  much  weight.  The  Hebrew  poets  abound  in 
allusions  to  the  stupendous  phenomena  of  creation. 
The  grandeur  of  the  narration  breathes  its  spirit  into 
their  sublimest  poetry ;  and  yet  there  is  in  no  one  of 
them  the  least  reference  to  such  diurnal  periods  of  dura- 
tion equivalent  to  our  ordinary  sun-measured  days  of 
twenty-four  hours.  Now,  if  these  are  supposed  to  be 
ordinary  days,  while  yet  the  sun's  diurnal  measurements 
do  not  commence  until  the  fourth  period,  then  is  there  a 
difficulty  which  is  patent  upon  the  very  face  of  the 
account.  It  forces  itself  upon  our  attention.  The  He- 
brew writers  must  have  seen  this  difficulty  as  clearly  as 
we  see  it.  They  must  have  been  struck  by  the  strange 
omission  of  all  explanatory  statements  ;  and  yet  in  their 
case,  the  imagination  is  never  driven  to  such  expedients 
for  making  a  night  and  morning,  or  alternate  transitions 
of  light  and  darkness,  as  have  suggested  themselves  to 
modern  defenders  of  the  twenty-four  hour  theory.  There 
is  no  allusion  to  any  alternating  hemispheres,  whether 
made  by  a  revolution  of  the  earth  or  the  heavens ;  no 
conception  of  the  darkness  coming  back  and  the  light 
going  out,  or  of  any  apparatus  for  that  purpose,  although 
some  image  of  the  kind  would  be,  on  such  a  supposition, 
indispensable  to  any  pictorial  representation  the  mind 
could  make  to  itself  of  the  facts  narrated.  It  is  obvious 
that  they  did  not  see  the  difficulty,  or  the  necessity  of 
any  sijecial  exercise  of  divine  power  in  relation  to  it.  Had 
it  been  otherwise,  such  conceived  expedients  would  have 
formed  no  unimportant  part  of  the  poetical  imagery, 


WORK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAY.      THE    LIGHT.  77 

whether  supposed  to  come  from  inward  or  outward  inspi- 
ration.    The  conclusion,  then,  is  irresistible.     If  they 
saw  and  felt  no  such  difficulty,  they  could  not  have  held 
the  view  from  which  it  inevitably  arises.     If  they  had 
had  in  their  minds  the  thought  of  the  short  days,  and  of 
an  ante-solar  apparatus  for  making  such  semi-diurnal 
successions  of  light  and  darkness  as  afterwards  existed, 
it  would  seem  impossible  for  them  not  to  have  occasionally 
dwelt  upon  it  as  one  of  the  most  marvellous  features  in 
the  whole  history.     But  nothing  of  the  kind  do  we  find 
in  David,  Solomon,  Job,  or  any  of  the  Prophets,  although  / 
there  were  so  many  connections  of  thought  that  might  j 
have  called  it  forth.*     They  expatiate,  at  times,  upon! 
everything  else  that  is  wonderful  in  the  first  chapter  of  \ 
Genesis— the  birth  of  the  light,  the  stretching  out  the  ' 
firmament,  the  division  of  the  waters  from  the  waters, 
the  separation  of  the  dry  land  from  the  former  umversal 
ocean,  the  bounding  of  the  wild  waves,  the  breathmg 
into  man  of  the  spirit  of  life.     But  instead  of  the  most 

*  One  of  the  most  distinct  references  to  the  creation  is  to 
be  found  in  Nehemiah,  ix,  6.  It  was  at  that  period  in  Jewish 
history  and  the  Jewish  literature,  when  the  raention  of  the 
days  in  their  natural  or  solar  sense  would  have  been  likely 
to  come  in,  if  it  had  been  prominent  in  the  writer's  thoughts, 
or  had  had  any  place  in  his  mind  among  the  wondrous  facts 
of  their  old  books.  There  can  be  but  little  doubt,  too,  of 
there  being  here  a  reference  to  the  Mosaic  account,  as  it  is  an 
epitome  of  God's  great  manifestations  connected  with  the  Jew- 
ish history  from  the  beginning  of  the  Hebrew  records.  And 
yet  there  is  no  mention  of  the  days,  as  we  now  regard  them. 
''  Thou,  0  God,  alone  hast  made  the  heavens,  yea,  the  heaven 
of  heavens  and  all  their  host,  the  earth  and  all  which  is 
upon  it,  the  seas  and  all  which  is  in  them.  Thou  gavest 
life  to  them  all,  (or  thou  didst  quicken  them  all,)  and  the 
hosts  of  heaven  worship  thee.     Thou  art  Jehovah,  God,  who 


78     WORK  OP  THE  FIRST  DAY.   THE  LIGHT. 

remote  allusion  to  these  marvellously  short  days,  such  as 
would  have  had  the  most  tempting  charm  for  them  had 
they  possessed  the  Talmudic  or  Rabbinical  spirit,  there  is 
evidently  a  laboring,  as  in  Job,  and  Proverbs,  viii,  to  set 
forth  the  immensely  prolonged  antiquities  of  the  proceed- 
ing. May  we  not  regard  the  fact,  too,  that  they  were 
kept  from  any  such  puerilities  and  vain  imaginations  as 
a  striking  evidence  of  their  being  truly  inspired  by  that 
creative  Spirit,  who  employed  their  poetical  conceptions 
and  emotions  as  the  best  medium  through  which  His  own 
great  thoughts  could  find  their  most  vivid  utterance  to 
the  human  soul. 

If  this  first  day,  or  period,  then,  was  an  indefinite,  un- 
measured one,  so  were  all  the  rest.  If  it  was  a  yom  olam, 
or  dai/  of  eternity^  to  use  the  expression  we  find,  Micah, 
V,  1,  that  is  belonging  to  the  ante-time,  or  ante-measured- 
time  period — the  same  character  must  be  possessed  by  all 
the  other  cyclical  periods  into  which  this  great  work  was 
divided.     This,  we  think,  must  be  the  feeling  of  every 

didst  choose  Abraham  and  bring  him  out  from  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees." 

This  omission  has  been  strangely  overlooked  by  commen- 
iators,  or,  more  strangely  still,  the  contrary  has  been  assumed 
without  evidence.  Says  Dr.  Turner,  in  his  Commentary  on 
Genesis, — "  It  is  evident  that  all  subsequent  sacred  writers 
who  take  notice  of  the  creation,  as  a  work  of  six  days,  do,  inva- 
riably, assume  a  literal  sense  of  the  word  day."  The  declar- 
ation of  so  truly  learned  a  man  as  Dr.  Turner,  and  what  is 
still  higher  merit,  of  so  careful  and  truthful  a  commentator, 
certainly  carries  with  it  great  weight,  and  that  is  the  very 
reason  why  we  specially  cite  it.  But  we  may  well  ask  him, 
Where  are  any  such  notices  to  be  found  in  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures? The  fourth  commandment  is  but  a  repetition,  and 
nowhere  else  is  there  any  allusion  to  such  days,  or  their  lite- 
ral, that  is,  in  the  common  sense,  their  short  duration. 


WORK  OF  THE  FIRST  DAY.   THE  LIGHT.     79 

one  who  just  lets  the  sublime  narrative,  in  all  its  original 
simplicity,  make  its  natural  impression  on  a  mind  unin- 
fluenced by  geology,  on  the  one  hand,  or  any  prepos» 
sessions  of  a  different  kind,  on  the  other. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


i  WORK    OF   THE   FIRST  DAY. 

THE   WORDS   DAY,   MORNING   AND   EVENING. 

The  night  comes  first. — What  was  the  fihst  night  ?— The  first  MOENiNe. 
Indefinite  use  of  the  word  day. — Extraordinary  on  the  very  face  of 
the  account. — Objection  considered. — Mention  of  evening  and  morn- 
ing.— Etymological  analysis. — The  Koran. — Argument  from  the  pecu- 
liar style  of  the  expression. — When  did  the  first  night  begin  ? — Dif- 
ficulties IN  the  way  of  the  twenty-four  hour  measurement. — The 
;  first  day  a  key  to  all  the  rest.— Creation  a  succession  of  natural 

PROCESSEC    commenced   BY  SUPERNATtJBAL    ACTS. 

And  there  loas  an  evening  and  there  was  a  morning^ 
one  day.  We  must  observe  here  that  the  night  comes 
first,  as  in  all  the  traditional  mythology  of  the  Greeks, 
Egyptians  and  Hindoos,  that  has  evidently  been  derived 
from  this  old  account.  "From  chaos,"  says  Hesiod, 
"  was  born  black  Night,  and  then  from  Night  was  born 
^ther  (or  the  Light)  and  the  Day." 

'Ex  Xolsoff  ^'  E^s/So's  re,  (jisXaiva  rs  Nu^  sygvovro, 

On  this  account  Aratus  calls  her 

primeval  Night,  as  the  mother  of  all  things,  and  still 
representative  of  those  hidden  parts  of  the  world  that 
are  near  the  southern  pole  of  the  mundus.  So,  also,  the 
author  of  the  Orphic  Hymn — 

NvxTct  0SWV  ysverffi^av  aeitfo/Jtoci  t^Ss  xa<  (xv5^wv. 
It  would  seem  difficult  to  avoid  here  the  obvious  inter- 
pretation which  is,  as  it  were,  forced  upon  us,  and  so 


THE  WORDS  DAY,  MORNING  AND  EVENING.    81 

strongly  favors  the  idea  of  indefinite  periods.  Wliat  was 
this  evening  but  the  darkness  of  the  chaos  over  which  the 
Spirit  hovered,  and  what  was  this  first  morning,  but  the 
first  beams  of  that  separating  light  which  broke  in  upon 
it,  when  God  said.  Let  it  he  light  and  light  ivas  there. 
This  was  the  evening  and  this  was  the  morning — one 
day.  Very  much  depends  upon  the  mental  or  concep- 
tive  position  from  which  such  a  declaration  is  viewed,  or 
upon  our  apprehension  of  the  design  for  which  it  is  made. 
Some  would  think  it  conclusive  against  all  the  unscrip- 
tural  fancies,  as  they  would  style  them,  of  those  who 
hold  to  the  indefinite  periods.  This  mention  of  the  eve- 
ning and  the  morning,  say  they,  settles  the  matter.  It 
was  meant  to  guard  us  against  these  very  notions  into 
which  men  would,  perhaps,  be  led  by  the  indefinite  and 
unfixed  sense  of  the  word  day ;  and  therefore  its  evening 
and  morning  are  distinctly  specified — thus  putting  it 
beyond  all  question  that  a  common  natural  day  was 
intended,  or  just  such  a  duration  as  we  at  present  call 
by  that  name.  But  now  let  us  take  another  look,  and 
from  a  different  stand-point.  In  so  doing,  the  natural 
and  the  unnatural  at  once  assume  a  different  aspect.  In 
the  first  place,  if  the  mention  of  the  morning  and  the  eve- 
ning, or  the  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  there  was  a 
morning  and  an  evening  to  this  remarkable  period,  was 
for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  mind  from  any  conceptions 
different  from  that  of  the  common  solar  day,  or  the  present 
day,  as  we  may  better  call  it,  the  question  then  arises,  why 
should  we  not  take  in  the  whole  of  the  thought,  or  syntagma 
of  imagined  appearances,  that  belongs  to  this  later  name  as 
now  employed  ?  Why  should  we  not  think  of  a  sun-rise, 
of  a  sun-set,  of  a  noon,  of  a  midnight  ?   But  this  we  can- 


82  WOKK   OF  THE  FIRST  DAY. 

not  do.  All  such  conceptions  are  expressly  excluded 
hj  the  account  itself.  And  this  furnishes  a  sufficient 
answer  to  the  very  common,  and  at  first  view,  very  plau- 
sible objection  which  we  put  in  the  words  of  a  very  late 
writer,  as  representative  of  the  best  that  is  generally 
said  on  the  subject.  "  When  Moses  wrote  the  book  of 
Genesis,  the  terms  '  day,'  '  morning'  and  '  evening,'  con- 
veyed to  the  Israelites  as  distinct  and  positive  an  idea  of 
a  certain  duration  of  time,  twenty-four  hours,  (or  its 
equivalent  he  might  have  said,)  as  did  the  words  ^  man,' 
^  woman,'  '  earth,'  or  '  sky,'  of  the  things  which  they 
denote ;  hence,  for  the  sacred  historian  to  have  used 
them  in  a  different  sense,  as  implying  ages  of  time  with- 
out the  slightest  intimation  that  he  did  so,  would  have 
been  sheer  deception."  Now,  of  this,  we  say,  in  the 
first  place,  that  the  term  dai/  did  not  always  convey  to 
the  Israehtes  a  distinct  and  positive  idea  of  a  certain 
duration  of  time  equivalent  to  twenty-four  hours.  In 
Scriptural  passages,  too  numerous  for  citation,  it  is  ap- 
plied to  an  indefinite  moral,  political,  or  physical  period 
far  exceeding  that  duration.  There  is  the  day  of  the 
Lord,  the  day  of  justice  or  of  mercy,  the  day  of  particu- 
lar nations,  the  day  of  Israel,  the  day  of  Jezreel,  the  day 
of  salvation,  the  day  of  Jerusalem,  the  day  in  which  the 
Lord  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  mentioned  in 
Genesis,  ii,  2,  or  the  day  of  days,  which  the  succeeding 
context  clearly  shows  was  meant  to  include  all  the  periods, 
whether  long  or  short. 

But  not  to  dwell  on  this,  which  has  occupied  our 
attention  before,  and  which  must  be  so  familiar  to  every 
reader  of  the  Bible,  we  proceed  to  take  up  the  objection 
in  its  own  style,  and  to  turn  upon  it  its  own  battery.    Let 


MORNING  AND   EVENING.         83 

US  introduce  a  slight  change,  which,  whilst  it  does  not 
alter  in  the  least  its  argumentative  force,  sets  in  a  strik- 
ing Hght  its  utter  insufficiency.  It  will  then  read  after 
this  manner — "  When  Moses  wrote  the  book  of  Genesis, 
the  terms  '  day,'  '  morning,'  and  '  evening,'  conveyed  to 
the  Israehtes  as  distinct  and  positive  an  idea  of  the 
regular  phenomenal  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun,  as  did 
the  words  man,  woman,  earth,  etc.,  of  the  things  which 
they  denote ;  hence  for  the  sacred  historian  to  have 
used  them  in  a  sense  which  excluded  these  essential 
accompaniments  of  the  later  idea  would  have  been  sheer 
deception."  The  conclusion  in  the  one  case  is  just  as 
good  as  in  the  other.  But  nothing  can  be  more  certain 
than  that,  according  to  the  account,  there  could  have 
been  no  visible  sun,  no  visible  sun-rise,  or  visible  sun-set, 
or  sun-made  morning  or  evening,  or  optical  meridian,  or 
optical  solar  phenomenon  of  any  kind,  on  that  remarka- 
ble day.  "  Not  the  slightest  intimation  that  he  did  so 
use  them.''''  Such  is  the  language  of  the  common  objec- 
tion, and  it  seems,  at  first  view,  to  present  a  strong  and 
plausible  front.  But  is  it  true  ?  In  the  non-creation 
of  the  phenomenal  sun  until  the  fourth  period,  and  the 
express  declaration  that  it  is  then,  for  the  first,  appointed 
to  be  a  measurer  of  days  and  years,  is  there  not  the 
"  sHghtest  intimation,"  is  there  not  an  all-sufficient  inti- 
mation to  the  reader,  in  the  very  outset,  that  there  is 
something  very  strange,  very  unusual,  very  much  out  of 
the  ordinary  modes  of  conception  -in  this  first  period, — 
something  which,  although  it  might  have  had  laws  of  its 
own,  was  very  anomalous  when  compared  with  subsequent 
solar  days,  and  was  only  called  by  this  name  because 
agreeing  with  them  in  those  general  cyclical  or  periodical 


84  WORK   OF  THE  FIRST   DAT. 

resemblances  of  succession  and  vicissitude  which  are  just 
as  much  independent  of  a  particular  duration  as  they  are 
ofj^those  regular  optical  phenomena  that  we  find  it  now 
so  difficult  to  dissociate  from  the  sun-measured  idea. 
Had  the  writer  given  us,  in  the  outset,  a  splendid  de- 
scription of  the  heavenly  bodies,  —  as  probably  would 
have  been  the  case  in  an  uninspired  account,  —  had  he 
brought  the  sun,  and  moon,  and  stars,  in  the  foreground 
of  the  picture,  instead  of  a  solitary  chaotic  earth,  or 
waste  of  waters  enveloped  in  a  dense  darkness,  the  ob- 
jection might  have  been  well  taken.  Had  he  used  the 
word  day^  under  such  circumstances  it  might  have  been 
said  with  some  truth,  that  there  was  no  intimation  to  the 
contrary  of  its  being  a  common,  or,  in  other  words, 
a  solar  day.  Such  an  account  too  would  have  been  very 
consistent  in  its  own  narrow  exactness.  It  would  have 
excluded  all  hermeneutical  obscurities  arising  from  the 
difficulty  of  presenting  in  human  language  primary  facts 
through  the  necessary  medium  of  human  conceptions. 
It  might  have  been  very  perspicuous,  very  easily  seen 
through^  very  intelligible.  But  then  it  would  lack,  not 
only  the  mysterious  grandeur  of  the  Bible,  but  that 
higher  consistency,  that  truthful  accordance  which  all 
discovery,  whether  exegetical  or  scientific,  is  slowly  yet 
surely  unfolding  in  the  old  Scriptural  cosmology. 

''As  implying  ages  of  time^''  says  the  objection. 
Now  this  is  a  gratuitous  assumption.  It  might  be  true 
as  alleged  against  the  geologist;  but  our  argument, 
which  is  wholly  bibhcal,  does  not  at  all  need  to  employ 
it,  or  to  answer  it.  All  that  is  contended  for  is  that  the 
Bible  narration,  easily  and  naturally  interpreted,  is  not 
only  silent  about  duration,  but  shuts  out  the  idea  of  any 


THE  WORDS  DAY,  MORNING  AND  EVENING.    85 

particular  extent,  be  it  longer  or  shorter.  Not  that  the 
day  had  no  certain  duration,  but  that  this  is  not  of  the 
essence  of  the  conception.  In  this  respect  the  writer 
hunself  may  have  had  some  particular  view  of  his  own, 
by  which,  however,  we  are  not  at  all  bound.  His  read- 
ers, too,  in  different  ages,  and  in  different  circumstances 
of  knowledge,  may  have  had  very  varyuig  conceptions  as 
to  extent,  yet  all  agreeing  in  that  essence  which  belongs 
to  the  absolute  verity  of  the  account.  It  may  have  been 
a  very  long  time,  or  a  very  short  time  ;  or  a  very  long 
time  by  one  standard  of  measurement,  and  a  very  short 
time  by  another.  All  that  we  say  is,  that  the  account 
does  not  tell  us  how  long  the  day  was ;  while  it  gives  us 
sufficient  intimation  that  we  must  not  attempt  to  confine 
the  conception  by  limits  that  could  only  be  assigned  to 
it  through  the  phenomena  of  subsequent  measured  time. 
We  think  we  have  answered  the  objection  derived 
from  the  mention  of  the  evening  and  the  morning.  As 
these,  whatever  they  were,  must  be  independent  of  an 
actual  sun-rising  and  sun-setting,  or  a  solar  day  in  its 
most  essential  phenomena,  so,  a  fortm^i,  do  they  leave 
us  unbound  by  the  conception  of  a  solar  day  in  respect 
to  the  less  important  element,  or  rather  the  accident  we 
might  say,  of  a  certain  duration.  But  may  not  the 
mention  have  been  made  for  a  reason  the  very  opposite 
of  that  which  the  objection  supposes.  Let  us  take  a 
look  at  it  from  this  side.  Why  is  it  said,  "  there  was  an 
eveniyig^  and  there  ivas  a  morning*''  ?  To  keep  us,  we  may 
answer,  from  regarding  duration,  or  a  certain  duration 
as  the  main,  or  even  any  essential  element  of  the  idea. 
It  was  not  this  that  made  it  a  day,  or  justified  the  name, 
but  the  fact  of  its  having  two  marked  and  contrasted 

8 


86  WORK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAi". 

seasons  to  wliicli  the  names  evening  and  morning  could 
be  given,  (especially  is  this  said  etymologicallj  of  the 
Hebrew  words,)  with  as  much  propriety  as  to  those  that 
were  made  bj  the  setting  and  rising  of  the  sun.  This 
was  the  evening,  and  this  the  morning — one  day.  As 
though  the  writer  had  said,  it  was  this  that  made  that 
day,  —  and  had  brought  in  the  expression  to  guard 
agamst  any  misconception  that  might  come  from  connect- 
ing it  with  any  subsecjuent  measures  of  time,  after 
measured  time  began. 

These  views  are  strengthened  by  an  etymological 
examination  of  the  terms  employed.  Day  and  night,  or 
the  Hebrew  ta*)^  and  nV^V  a,re  general  terms,  and  may 
be  taken  of  the  times  occupied  by  certain  phenomena,  as 
well  as  of  the  i^henomena  themselves.  The  words 
evening  and  morning  (:i'iy  and  "i^'a)  are  confined  mainly 
to  the  latter  use.  They  denote,  not  duration  of  any 
extent,  so  much  as  the  optical  or  ph^^sical  appearances 
by  which  they  are  marked,  or  in  which  they  commence 
and  terminate.  It  is  rational,  therefore,  to  lay  a  stress 
on  their  phenomenal  or  etymological  significations  which 
might  not  be  justified  in  other  cases  ;  especially  when 
we  bear  in  mind  that  they  are  explanatory  of  this  word 
yom.  They  are  used  to  show  why  it  is  called  a  day, — 
because  divided  by  two  contrasted  states  that  could  be 
characterized  by  no  words  so  well  as  by  those  which  are 
afterwards  used  to  denote  the  corresponding  parts  of 
that  lesser  and  more  distinctly  marked  cj^cle,  the  common 
solar  day.  What  makes  them  the  more  appropriate  for 
this  purpose  is  the  fact,  that  when  etymologically  exam- 
ined, they  present  that  same  primary  conception  to  be 
found  in  the  general  words  n^h  and  H^-sh,  and  which 


MORNING   AND   EVENING.         87 

underlies  our  view  of  almost  every  great  development  in 
the  physical  worid.  It  is  called  a  day,  because  there 
■^as  an  ereh  (^y^  and  a  hoher  (^^vS)  —  that  is  a  wing- 
Img,  a  hlendmg,  a  confusion  of  elements,  such  as  is  pre- 
viously called  "j'lph  (choshek)  or  the  darkness  that  was 
upon  the  face  of  the  deep,  and  this  followed  by  a  sepa- 
rating, a  CLEAVING,  a  parting  of  elements,  issuing  in 
the  first  light,  whether  regarded  optically,  or  in  reference 
to  its  pictorial  effect  in  marking  the  outlines  and  divisions 
of  things ;  or  with  still  more  primary  reference  to  that 
first  action  w^hich  constitutes  the  very  potentiality  of 
light,  and  makes  it  the  great  representative  of  the  corre- 
sponding development  in  each  of  the  creative  periods. 

And  all  this,  we  say,  is  confirmed  by  the  etymological 
analysis  of  these  remarkable  words, —  an  analysis  pre- 
senting no  afterthought  of  science  and  philosophy,  but 
the  first  fresh  conceptions  which  the  earliest  mind  w^ould 
entertain  of  the  primary  ongoings  and  outgoings  of 
nature.  The  word  ereb  (=i^?)  which  is  undoubtedly  the 
mother  of  the  Greek  spsLdog,  comes  evidently  from  an:^  to 
mingle,  hence  appHed  to  the  evening,  the  blending  of  the 
light,  or  that  absence  of  the  light  whefher  conceived  of 
as  a  covering,  a  shadow,  or  an  absolute  privation,  in 
which  all  things  are  phenomenally  mingled  in  one  dark, 
undistinguished,  undivided  mass.  The  thought  is  to  be 
traced  in  the  derivations.  From  this  root  comes  the 
name  for  .the  raven^  (or  the  dark  bird,)  still  preserving 
in  our  own  tongue  the  two  main  radical  consonants,  also 
the  name  for  the  desert,  (araba  or  arava,)  presenting  the 
same  negative  image  consisting  in  the  absence  ot  all 
distinction  of  parts  and  features.  The  radical  concep- 
tion appears  still  more  strongly  in  some  of  the  cognates ; 


88  WORK   OF   THE   FIRST  DAY. 

as  In  t)'D?,  Isaiah,  v,  30,  from  whence  the  noun  i\^y^  a 
dense  cloud,  and  that  sublime  word  "^s";!??  employed  in 
some  of  the  most  impressive  descriptions  of  the  Bible  for 
the  thick  dm-hiess,  and  evidentlj^  allied  in  its  root  to  the 
Greek  o^^v?)  denoting  the  very  blackness  of  darkness. 
Our  Saxon  evening  like  the  Greek  and  Latin  hesper,  has 
not  so  strong  a  sense,  yet  still  preserves  the  same  pri- 
mary thought ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  German 
ahende.  It  is  the  evening,  the  blending,  the  assimilating 
period ;  just  as  hli^td  or  hle7id  denotes  the  obliterating  of 
all  distinction,  a  reducing  of  all  things  to  the  same  dark 
vmdefinable  condition.  Directly  opposed  to  this,  pheno- 
menally, is  the  word  "ij^'a  (boker).  The  primary  sense 
of  the  verb,  still  existing  in  the  Arabic,  and  clearly  to 
be  seen  in  its  derivatives,  is  the  same  with  that  of  the 
kindred  word  sj^a,  namely,  to  cleave,  to  divide,  to  sepa- 
rate, and  thus  to  distinguish  both  optically  and  mentally. 
It  is  the  same  image  that  is  used  in  the  Arabic  of  the 
passage  we  have  already  cited  from  the  Koran,  (p.  72,) 
where  God  is  called  the  Lord  of  the  day-dawning,  the 
dag-cleaving,  the  day  parting,  or  the  dag-hrealung,  as 
we  most  familiarly  and  graphically  express  it  in  our  own 
tongue.  Hence  the  optical  and  intellectual  sense  of  the 
piel  conjugation,  to  hole  keenly,  to  discriminate,  to  ana- 
lyze. The  same  primary  idea  is  found  in  the  closely 
allied  root  "i5^  denoting  to  j?  art,  to  cleave,  to  break  forth, 
and  hence  giving  rise  to  that  very  common  noun  signify- 
ing the/?'s-^  born,  the  first  fruits,  the  first  going  forth 
of  anything  in  the  physical  world,  whether  vegetable  or 
animal. 

Thus  ereb  and  baker  are  etymologically  opposed,  not 
merely  as  two  different  t'mes,  not  merely  as  light  and 


THE  WORDS  DAY,  MORNING  AND  EVENING.    89 

darkness  even,  but  as  presenting  those  antithetical  ideas 
of  blending  and  separation^  into  which  expressions  for  the 
phenomena  of  light  and  darkness  are  ultimately,  and, 
perhaps,  in  all  languages,  capable  of  being  resolved. 
Ordinarily  it  would  not  be  proper  to  insist  so  much  on 
primary  etymological  senses,  and  run  the  risk,  by  so 
doing,  of  carrying  an  obsolete  conception  into  some  sub- 
sequent well  understood  meaning  of  a  term.  But  in 
cases  like  this,  where  everything  depends  upon  getting 
the  right  conceptive  stand  point,  and  where,  too,  the  mat- 
ters treated  of  are  so  entirely  out  of  the  ordinary  track, 
it  becomes  the  part  of  sober  hermeneutics  to  make  use  of 
all  elements  that  enter,  in  any  manner,  into  the  radical 
ideas  of  the  words. 

The  force  of  these  remarks  would  be  more  strongly 
felt,  had  we  been  accustomed  in  our  translation  to  some 
other  words,  built,  indeed,  on  the  very  same  idea,  yet 
presenting  more  of  the  phenomenal  conception,  or  in 
which  it  had  become  less  obsolete  in  subsequent  usage. 
Had  it  been  written  for  us  in  our  Bibles,  and  thus 
become  familiar  to  us  from  our  infancy,  "  there  was  a 
hlending  and  a  parting^  there  was  a  darkness  and  a  day 
hreak.  a  dush  and  a  dauming,  a  covering  and  a  de-velop- 
ment — all  of  which  have  a  similar  etymological  meaning, 
— there  would  have  been  less  thought  of  the  fixed  time  of 
a  common  solar  day ;  and  the  mind  would  more  easily 
and  naturally  have  received  the  notion  of  indefinite 
periods,  as  not  only  meeting  the  hermeneutical  exigen- 
cies, but  as  being  in  harmony  with  what  would  be  deeply 
felt  to  be  the  ruling  spirit  of  the  passage.  Take  ano- 
ther kindred  set  of  expressions.  There  was  a  gloom, 
and  there  was  a  gleam,  or  gleaming.     No  two  words 

8* 


W  WOKK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAT. 

would  have  answered  better  than  these,  not  only  as 
denoting  the  most  direct  contrast,  but  as  both  springing 
out  of  one  root  which  may  be  regarded  as  presenting  the 
synthesis  of  the  two  ideas,  or  the  beginning  of  that  motion 
in  nature,  on  one  side  of  which  lies  the  involving  dark- 
ness, and  on  the  other  the  evolving  light — on  the 
one  side  the  dense  covering,  and  on  the  other  the  first 
glimpse  of  development. 

There  is  a  pecuharity,  too,  in  the  style,  or  order  of  the 
expression,  on  which  it  may  be  worth  our  while  to  dwell. 
There  was  an  evening,  and  there  was  a  morning.  It 
may  strike  others  very  differently,  but  in  our  own  mind 
we  must  confess  to  a  strong  impression  of  intended  inde- 
finiteness,  arising,  as  it  seems  to  us,  from  the  very 
strangeness  of  the  language.  The  expressions  are  very 
peculiar ;  in  fact,  sui  generis.  The  morning  and  the 
evening  of  a  common  solar  day  would  not  have  been  thus 
set  forth.  It  is  never  thus  set  forth  in  any  other  part 
of  the  Old  Testament.  The  emphasis  and  order  of  the 
language  seem  to  have  respect  to  the  query  that  might 
be  supposed  to  arise  most  naturally  in  the  reader's  mind, 
—  How  could  this  strange  sunless  day  have  any  analogy 
with  the  other  periods  now  called  by  that  name  ?  Neither 
the  question  nor  the  answer  would  have  been  suggested 
had  there  been  no  doubt  of  its  being  the  common  diurnal 
time.  But  they  have  a  sublime  propriety  when  used  in 
comiection  with  the  other  idea.  And  then  the  asserting 
substantive  verbs  are  so  formally  repeated  —  '''there 
ivas  an  evening,  and  there  was  a  morning"  —  as 
though  it  were  intended  to  make  succession  of  events, 
independent  of  any  particular  duration,  the  essential  and 
prominent  thought.     There  had  been  pictui-ed  to  us  the 


91 

chaos ;  there  Is  then  presented  the  gomg  forth  of  the 
brooding,  vivifying  spirit  upon  the  dark  waters  of  the 
abyss ;  this  is  followed  by  its  first-born,  the  Light ;  and 
then,  to  prevent  all  misconception,  we  have  what  follows, 
as  though  the  writer  would  answer  the  silent  query  — 
"  This  was  the  evening,  and  this  was  the  morning,"  or 
"  thus  there  was  an  evening,  and  thus  there  was  a 
morning — one  day." 

The  expression  "ihi<  £='!">,  day  one,  is  generally  explain- 
ed as  equivalent  to  first  day,  on  the  ground  of  a  Hebrew 
idiom  which  sometimes  employs  the  first  cardinal  number 
for  an  ordinal.  And  yet  there  would  seem  to  be  some- 
thing peculiar  about  it,  which  such  explanation  does  not 
fully  meet.  In  the  case  of  the  other  days,  the  common 
ordinals  are  employed ;  and,  corresponding  to  them,  we 
should  have  had,  in  this  place,  iin-^-i  instead  of  "^hN,  had 
it  not  been  intended  to  convey  the  idea  of  something 
anomalous  in  the  first  period,  as  an  intimation,  perhaps, 
that  such  character  belonged  to  them  all.  In  regard 
to  this  thought,  there  is  a  very  suggestive  passage, 
Zachariah,  xiv,  6,  7.  ''  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in 
that  day  that  the  light  shall  not  be  clear  nor  dark."  It 
is  not  necessary  for  the  present  argument  to  dwell  on 
the  many  interpretations  that  have  been  given  of  this 
verse.  But  the  one  that  follows,  besides  being  very 
remarkable  in  itself,  strikingly  suggests  the  passage 
before  us  in  Genesis  — "  And  it  shall  be  one  day,  which 
shall  be  known  to  the  Lord,  not  day  nor  night,  but  it 
shall  come  to  pass  that  in  the  evening  time  there  shall 
be  light."  Various  views  have  been  taken  of  this  strange 
language.  The  words,  not  day  nor  night,  have  been 
well  supposed  to  denote  a  period  which  shall  not  be 


92  WORK   OP   THE   FIRST   DAY. 

marked  by  these  vicissitudes  as  tliey  are  now  made  by 
the  sun.  .  The  expression,  "  in  the  evening  there  shall 
be  light,"  calls  also  to  mind  the  great  first  day  of  creation 
in  which  the  evening  was  the  forerunner  of  the  dawn. 
But  the  main  resemblance  is  in  the  words  ih!<  t=3  =■.■>, 
which  are  precisely  the  same,  and  in  a  similar  connec- 
tion, in  Zachariah  and  Genesis.  In  the  Prophecy  it 
most  evidently  denotes  a  peculiar  day,  a  day  differing 
much  from  common  days ;  and  we  are  strongly  inclined 
to  the  same  interpretation  here,  instead  of  the  usual  one 
which  would  take  the  cardinal  number  simply  as  an  ordi- 
nal. Some  of  the  Fathers  were  struck  by  this  language 
in  Genesis,  and  were  led,  on  account  of  it,  to  regard  the 
first  day  as  somehow  including  all  the  rest, — being,  in 
fact,  the  day  of  days  mentioned  in  the  beginning  of  the 
second  chapter,  or  the  "day  in  which  God  made  the 
heavens  and  the  earth."  Their  interpretation  is  of  httle 
value  philologically,  for  they  were  poor  Hebraists ;  but 
it  is  of  importance  to  show  how  much  these  early  com- 
mentators were  led  to  regard  these  days  as  anomalous, 
and  how  little  they  were  inclined  to  be  limited  by  any 
narrow  twenty-four  hour  hypothesis. 

In  connection  v/ith  this  it  is  important  also  to  bear  in 
mind  the  interpretation  of  Josephus  (Antiq.  Book  I.  Ch. 
1,) — "And  this  was  the  first  day ;  but  Moses  called  it 
one  day^  the  cause  of  which  I  am  able  to  give  even  now, 
but  shall  put  off  its  exposition  until  another  time."  The 
promised  explanation  is  nowhere  else  furnished  to  us  ;  but 
this  is  sufficient  to  show  that  he  regarded  the  account  as 
anomalous.  There  must  have  been  something  in  the 
style,  something  on  the  face  of  the  narration  which  led 
him  to  this ;  since  in  this  case,  as  well  as  in  that  of  the 


THE  WORDS  DAY,  MORNING  AND  EVENING.    93 

Fathers,  there  were  no  questions  of  science  to  affect  his 
mind.  The  ordinal  interpretation  of  the  first  numeral, 
which  is  required  in  certain  examples,  must  have  been 
known  to  him  as  an  accurate  Hebraist ;  but  he  evidently 
does  not  regard  it  as  sufficient  to  satisfy  that  feeling  of 
mysteriousness  that  comes  to  the  mind  from  the  whole 
air  and  aspect  of  this  wondrous  pictorial  representation 
of  ineffable  facts. 

We  do  not  wish  to  cheat  ourselves,  or  bewilder  our 
readers,  with  mere  etymological  distinctions ;  but  the 
primary  images,  as  we  have  given  them,  are  certainly  in 
the  roots  of  the  Hebrew  words  for  evening  and  morning. 
These  words  do  doubtless  come  to  be  used  afterward 
without  much  reference  to  the  first  conceptions.  Such 
is  the  case  with  all  pictorial  language.  But,  then,  these 
conceptive  images  must  once  have  been  fresh  in  the 
mind;  they  must,  at  some  date,  have  been  vivid  elements 
in  human  speech  ;  or  we  cannot  account  for  their  origin, 
or  the  remarkable  tenacity  with  which  they  still  hold 
their  place  in  almost  all  known  languages.  If  there 
ever  was  a  case  in  which  the  writer  would  have  them  in 
his  own  thought,  or  would  desire  that  they  might  be  in 
the  thought  of  the  reader,  this  certainly  would  have  its 
claim  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  kind.  The  nature  of 
the  morning  and  the  evening  give  character  to  the  day, 
instead  of  being  themselves  determined  by  a  jDreviously 
assumed  hypothesis  of  its  being  a  common  day,  or  hav- 
ing a  certain  duration. i^  But  why,  then,  use  the  word 
day  at  all  ?  On  this  question  we  hope  to  satisfy  our 
readers  in  another  part  of  the  argument,  when  we  come 
to  speak  of  the  solar  day  itself  as  brought  out  in  the 
work  of  the  fourth  period. 


94  WORK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAY. 

To  proceed,  however,  with  the  examination  in  its  pre- 
sent order, —  the  preceding,  or  primeval  night,  when 
darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  abyss,  has  certainly 
every  appearance  of  indefiniteness.  The  whole  aspect, 
too,  of  the  account  seems  designed  to  fix  that  impres- 
sion on  the  mind.  It  was  a  starless,  moonless  night, 
unmarked  in  its  commencement,  and  unmeasured  by  any 
periods  or  cycles  known  to  modern  science,  or  noAV  pre- 
sented in  any  phenomena  of  the  natural  world.  There 
were  no  hours,  no  minutes,  no  divisions  that  could  be 
connected  with  any  terrestrial  or  cosmical  standard. 
There  were  no  "watches  of  that  night,"  unless  it  be 
such  as  the  Psalmist  speaks  of,  in  wdiich  a  millenium  of 
our  current  solar  years  may  have  been  no  more  than  the 
seemingly  fleeting  moment  that  just  precedes  the  dawn. 
Such  was  this  unmeasured  night,  and  the  morning  spoken 
of  was  its  termination.  That  morning,  be  it  remem- 
bered, was  not  the  beginning  but  the  close  of  the  first 
day,  or,  at  all  events,  the  commencement  of  its  latter 
period.  And  so  it  was  in  each  successive  creative  day 
until  the  end  of  the  sixth,  and  the  commencement  of  the 
seventh,  when  God  rested  from  his  '  ivorh  of  creation  ^^ 
and  the  great  hebdomad,  or  fullness  of  days^  winds  up 
in  that  blessed  '  work  of  providence '  Avhich  He  hath 
worked  and  worketh  hitherto  in  the  present  Sabbath  of 
the  world. 

And  here  is  the  place  for  the  examination  of  a  ques- 
tion which  has  been  for  some  time  pressing  upon  us,  and 
must  have  suggested  itself  to  the  mind  of  almost  every 
reader.  What  ivas  the  commencement  of  this  first  day? 
Most  evidently  the  night  constitutes  the  earlier  portion, 
because  mentioned  first  in  the  order  of  succession.     But 


THE  WORDS  DAY,  MOKNING  AND  EVENING.    95 

when  did  this  night  begin  ?  From  what  point  are  its 
hours,  its  watches,  its  midnight,  its  ante-meridian  and 
post-meridian  divisions  to  be  reckoned  ?  On  the  hypo- 
thesis of  the  common  solar  day,  or  its  equivalent  in  dura- 
tion, this  beginning  must  have  been  just  twelve  hours 
before  the  light  which  constitutes  the  morning.  But 
now  three  questions  force  themselves  upon  the  mind, — 
Was  there  light  before  this  twelve  hours  ?  or  was  there 
darkness  ?  or  was  there  nothing  at  all  ?  If  we  say  the 
first,  then  must  there  have  been  a  preceding  day ;  if  the 
second,  then  the  night  did  not  then  begin,  or  we  have  a 
commencement  entirely  arbitrary,  assigned  to  a  moment 
differing  in  no  respect,  either  essential  or  phenomenal, 
from  those  that  precede  or  follow  it.  If  we  give  the 
third  answer,  it  seems  inconsistent  with  both  the  letter 
and  spirit  of  the  second  verse — And  darkness  WAS  (f^;fj) 
or  had  been  upon  the  face  of  the  ivaters — implying  the 
previous  existence  of  that  on  which  the  darkness  then 
rested,  and  had  been  resting,  at  the  moment  vfhen  this 
first  night  begins.  If  we  shrink  from  the  absurdity  of 
a  mere  arbitrary  commencement  thus  estimated  from  a 
date  with  nothing  to  distinguish  it  from  what  comes 
immediately  before  or  after,  there  is  no  way  to  avoid  it 
except  by  adopting  the  indefinite  view,  which  is  pressed 
by  none  of  these  narrow  difficulties,  or  else  by  boldly 
taking  the  ground  that  the  very  matter,  or  dynamical 
entity,  of  the  earth  and  the  heavens  came  into  existence 
just  twelve  hours,  neither  more  nor  less,  before  the  shin- 
ing of  the  light  which  made  the  first  morning  of  our 
world.  It  may  be  said  that  this  nice  computation  of 
twelve  hours,  or  of  a  duration  exactly  equivalent  to 
twelve  hours,  seems  hke  trifling  with  the  greatness  of  the 


96  WORK   OF  THE  FIRST  DAY. 

subject,  and  the  sublime  language  of  the  account.  The 
writer  feels  it,  and  admits  it.  But  then,  does  not  all 
this  incongruity,  and  apparent  beUttling  of  the  Mosaic 
idea,  come  directly  from  the  attempt  to  confine  our  con- 
ceptions within  the  narrow  limits  of  the  twenty -four  hour 
theory  ?  It  is  wholly  at  war,  we  say,  with  the  natural  feel- 
ing that  arises  in  the  mind  on  reading  this  super-humanl}' 
grand  description  of  the  origin  of  our  world- — And  tlie 
eartli  was  without  fo7'm  and  void,  and  darkness  tuas  rest- 
ing upon  the  face  of  the  deep,  and  the  spirit  of  Crod  was 
hrooding  upon  the  tvaters.  Who  shall  think  of  an  exact 
twelve  hours  here,  unless  compelled  by  words  or  language 
utterly  incapable  of  any  other  interpretation.  But  there 
is  no  such  limiting  language  in  the  passage,  and  the  sub- 
sequent terms  that  might  seem  to  suggest  our  modern 
measurements  must  be  controlled  by  those  first  impres- 
sions that  are  made  upon  the  soul  in  the  introductory 
statements  of  this  wondrous  narrative.  Instead  of  limit- 
ation of  any  kind,  we  cannot  keep  out  of  our  thoughts 
the  conceptions  of  vastness  every  way,  vastness  in  the 
trine  aspect  of  the  idea,  vastness  of  sjmce  in  the  image 
of  the  illimitable  waters,  vastness  of  degree  in  the  con- 
ceived grandeur  of  the  work,  and  along  with  these  will 
come  in  the  conception  of  vastness  of  duration.  It  is 
essential  to  the  harmony  of  the  idea.  It  is  that  third 
element  of  dimension  without  which  God's  work  appears 
but  as  a  phantom  of  width  and  altitude,  instead  of  the 
fall  complement  of  being  that  the  divinely  given  law  of 
our  thinking  demands.  It  is  thus  that  the  opening  pic- 
ture gives  character  to  all  the  rest.  The  feeling  of  the 
vast,  the  indefinite,  the  unmeasured,  once  received  into 
the  soul  is  carried  naturally  through  all  the  other  periods. 


THE  WORDS  DAY,  MORNING  AND  EVENING.    97 

It  is  in  these  first  verses  we  should  look  for  the  key 
which  is  to  guide  us  in  the  interpretation  of  all  the  rest. 
The  day  and  the  night,  the  evening  and  the  morning, 
instead  of  being  limited  by  the  later  and  necessarih- 
inadequate  conceptions,  are  to  be  taken  from  the  larger 
and  grander  scale  furnished  to  our  survey  from  this 
primitive  stand-point.  Under  such  a  guidance,  the  reader 
who  vv'ill  carefully  study  the  whole  account  cannot  fail  to 
see  that  each  transition  is  from  a  lower  or  less  perfect  to 
a  higher  and  more  perfect  state.  Each  is  marked  by 
the  introduction  of  some  new  thing,  or  by  some  separa- 
tion or  dividing  of  a  higher  and  higher  element  of  being 
from  the  old  chaos ;  and  this,  in  such  a  way,  that  each 
former  or  preparatory  state  is  the  night  to  the  cycle,  the 
evening  or  comparatively  chaotic  ereh  to  the  higher  con- 
dition which  next  dawns  upon  the  world.  Nor  is  this 
merely  poetical.  The  conceptions,  as  we  have  sho^vn, 
are  inherent  in  the  primary  images  of  the  words,  more 
deeply  grounded  in  them,  and  in  this  sense  older  than 
the  subordinate  idea  of  some  exactly  measured  duration. 

Each  new  element,  too,  or  new  division^  though  grad- 
ual in  its  after  working,  has  a  sudden  and  preternatural 
beginning,  Hke  the  first  glance  of  the  light  out  of  chaos, 
or  over  chaos,  and  therefore  most  appropriately  called  a 
morning,  a  hoker,  ('^J??)  a  separating,  Sij-^cirting,  a  look- 
171  (/forth.  It  is  a  saltus,  or  lea^?,  in  nature,  when  God's 
disturbing  voice  is  heard  calhng  forth  some  new  thing, 
and  lo,  it  awakes  from  the  long  sleep  of  natural  causa- 
tion ;  "  it  stands  up,^^  as  the  prophet  most  subhmely 
paints  it,  and  with  the  same  allusion,  as  we  may  think, 
to  the  primary  images  of  the  words — ^^ I  call  to  them, 
they  stand  ujrJ'     That  voice  was  uttered  in  each  of  the 

9 


98  WORK   OF   THE   FIRST   DAi. 

creative  processes,  and  will  be  uttered  again  when  tlie 
declaration  shall  go  forth,  "  Lo,  I  make  all  things  new.'" 
The  same  voice  which  said,  "Let  there  be  light,  and 
there  was  Hght,"  is  repeated  in  each  of  these  superna- 
tural mornings,  and  there  is  the  same  instant  obedience, 
the  same  beginning  of  something  in  nature  ^vhich  was 
not  in  nature  before, —  accompanied,  perhaps,  by  most 
sudden  and  wonderful  changes,  and  then  followed  again 
by  a  long  rest,  sleep,  or  night,  as  we  may  call  it,  of  nature's 
tardy  grov^ih. 

This  is  the  conclusion  to  which  geology  is  fast  coming. 
Although  it  is  intended  to  make  our  argument  purely 
exegetical,  unwarped  hy  anything  that  science  has  dis- 
covered, or  may  yet  discover,  still  would  we  acknowledge 
the  essential  aid  which  in  this  respect  geology  is  render- 
ing to  these  most  important  ideas  of  revelation.  Infidel 
as  her  spirit  often  is,  she  is  driven  more  and  more  to 
acknowledge,  as  the  only  theory  that  will  solve  pheno- 
mena, and,. therefore,  as  the  only  one  that  can  be  trul}- 
called  inductive,  the  mixture  of  the  natural  and  the 
supernatural,  in  the  production  of  our  earth.  As  surel}' 
as  there  is  written  on  the  rocks  the  long  working  of  reg- 
ular uninterrupted  laws  or  methods,  in  which  each  step 
or  stage  seems  to  come  out  of  what  went  before  and  to 
have  given  birth  to  what  comes  after,  (for  this  is  the  only 
consistent  meaning  we  can  attach  to  the  word  natural,') 
so  surely  is  there  found  there  another  record  as  strongly, 
and  we  may  even  say  more  unmistakeably  engraved. 
From  a  higher  world  than  the  natural,  there  must  have 
been  from  time  to  time  a  sudden  flashing  in  of  the  extra- 
ordinary,  of  the  supernatural,  of  a  new  morning  after 
the  long  night  of  nature,  or,  in  orther  words,  the  Divine 


THE  WORDS  DAY,  MORNING  AND  EVENING.    99 

power  introducing,  or  bringing  out,  if  any  prefer  the 
term,  a  new  element,  a  new  force,  a  new  law,  a  new 
idea,  call  it  what  you  will,  accompanied  with  new  methods 
or  laws  for  its  subsequent  growth  or  development,  and 
then  leaving  it  to  their  undisturbed  operation. 

The  two  extreme  views  alike  fail  in  explaining  the 
appearances.  We  find  insuperable  difficulties,  whether 
we  suppose  an  uninterrupted  nature,  on  the  one  hand,  or 
a  succession  of  supernatural  acts  following  each  other 
in  direct  and  almost  simultaneous  succession,  on  the 
other.  Science  and  Scripture  do  certainly  present  a 
remarkable  agreement  in  the  order  of  these  great  creative 
acts,  or  these  great  anomalous  developments.  Setting 
aside  the  question  of  duration,  the  harmony  in  other 
aspects  is  so  striking  that  we  might  well  suspect  a  forced 
accommodation  if  the  exceeding  antiquity  of  the  record 
had  not  been  placed  beyond  all  cavil.  Whilst  thus 
strangely  agreeing,  however,  in  the  wonderful  steps 
through  which  creation  rose  from  chaos  to  a  state  of  life 
and  order,  they  are  both  alike  silent  in  respect  to  the 
actual  or  comparative  length  of  the  intervening  chasms 
of  duration.  They  do  not  tell  us  either  how  long  they 
were,  as  measured  by  our  solar  cycles,  or  how  short  they 
may  have  been  in  comparison  with  some  longer  aeons 
or  ages  of  the  universe.  The  Scripture  calls  them  days. 
The  two  contrasted  times,  in  each,  of  supernatural  action 
and  natural  repose,  it  most  graphically  represents  as  an 
evening  and  a  morning.  The  Hebrew,  or  still  older 
Syriac,  had  no  other  words  so  well  adapted  to  this  pur- 
pose, whether  we  regard  the  essential  idea  or  the  etymo- 
logical metaphor.  But  certainly  they  could  have  been 
no  common  days,  no  common  nights,  no  common  morn- 


100  WORK    OF   THE   FIRST   DAY. 

ings.  This,  we  think,  must  appear  from  the  whole  spirit 
and  aspect  of  the  strange  account.  They  were  God's 
days,  his  t=a^iy  •'tt^  or  dies  etetmitatis.  Thej  were  the 
morning  and  evening  intervals  of  His  creative  periods,  as 
much  beyond  our  diarnal  cycles  as  His  ways  are  above 
our  ways  and  His  thoughts  above  our  thoughts,  —  above 
them  in  all  the  trine  aspects  of  greatness,  —  as  measure- 
less in  their  duration  as  in  their  space  and  power. 

It  is  a  proper  place  to  remark  here,  in  passing,  that 
such  use  of  day  rather  than  year,  or  month,  or  century, 
to  denote  indefinite  time,  or  an  age,  is  a  peculiarity  of 
many,  perhaps,  we  might  say,  of  most  languages.  Every 
scholar  must  be  familiar  with  it  in  the  Latin.  Dies  is 
for  tempus.  Thus  Livy  —  Dies  tempusqiie  Unit  iram. 
It  is  employed  in  a  still  wider  sense,  yet  preserving  the 
same  old  cyclical  idea,  for  the  present  life,  the  j^resent 
world,  the  present  state  of  being,  as  one  of  the  "  days  of 
eternity,"  as  an  olam  of  the  great  olam.  Hence  the 
phrase,  venire  in  diem,  to  be  horn,  or  come  into  the 
world.  As  another  example  from  the  Hebrew,  we  need 
only  cite  the  sublime  passage  in  which  the  Prophet  em- 
ploys this  same  radical  conception  in  his  attempt  to  set 
forth  the  absolute  eternity  of  Jehovah.  N^in  -^sx  tzai^te. 
''  Before  me  there  was  no  God,  and  after  me  there  shall 
be  no  other.  Before  the  day,  I  am  HE.''''  That  is, 
before  time  existed  —  II  ^'fX^^^  —  ^^  initio  —  as  it  is  ren- 
dered by  the  Alexandrian  translator,  and  in  the  commen- 
taries of  Jerome. 

But  to  return  to  our  creative  divisions.  There  is  first 
the  parting  of  the  light ;  next  the  division  of  the  lighter 
fluids  or  atmosphere  ;  next  the  elimination  of  the  solid 
from  the  fluid  :  next  the  mornins:  of  vcfretable  life  :  then 


THE  WORDS  DAY,  MORNING  AND  EVENING.   101 

the  arrangements  for  the  regular  divisions  of  time  by  the 
celestial  luminaries ;  then  the  birth  of  the  lower  forms 
of  reptile  life  which  the  waters  are  made  to  bring  forth ; 
then  the  dawn  of  the  higher  animate  existence,  terminat- 
ing in  the  rational  or  human,  and  immediately  following 
this,  the  Sabbath  eve,  whose  long  expected  morning, 
although  it  may  have  begun  to  dawn,  has  not  yet  arisen 
in  its  full  splendour  upon  our  world. 


CHAPTER  X. 


WORK   OF   THE   SECOND   DAY. 

THE   FIRMAMENT. 

Creation  of  the  firmament. — Scientific  objection. — Ignorance  of  Moses. 
The  fact. — The  conception  of  the  fact. — Phenomenal  langi?age  — Sci- 
entific LANGUAGE. — CHANGES  IN  ASTRONOMICAL  LANGUAGE. — In  OPTICAL 
AND  CHEMICAL  LANGUAGE. — SUPERIORITY  OR  THE  BiBLE  LANGUAGE. — NeVEK 
BECOMES    OBSOLETE. — ThE   OBJECTION    LIES    A8  WELL   TO    MANY  OTHER    PARTS 

OF  THE  Scripture. — Examples  from  New  Testament. — Language  of  pro- 
phecy.— Time-words  of  prophecy. — Analogous  language  in  respect  t« 

THE  HUMAN  BODY. — ILLUSTRATION  FROM  PsALM  CXXXIX. — ThE  HeBREW  W0R)S 
FOR  FIRMAMENT.— The  PHYSICAL  PROCESS  IT  REPRESENTS.— COMPARISON 
WITH    SCIENTIFIC  LANGUAGE. — ThE  LATTER  ALSO  PHENOMENAL. 

We  have  in  the  next  verses  what  has  seemed  to  many 
the  great  difficulty,  the  almost  insuperable  stumbling  block 
of  this  Mosaic  account. 

''-  And  God  said,  Let  there  be  a  firmament  between 
the  waters,  and  let  it  divide  the  waters.  And  God 
made  the  firmament ;  and  he  divided  between  the  waters 
which  were  above  the  firmament,  and  the  waters  which 
were  beneath  the  firmament,  and  it  was  so.  And  God 
called  the  firmament  heavens  ;  and  there  was  an  evening 
and  there  was  a  morning — second  day."  Genesis,  i, 
0,  7,  8. 

We  anticipate  the  anxious  enquiry  that  has  pressed, 
and  is  yet  pressing,  on  many  minds  bewildered  by  false 
biblical  views  and  the  false  claims  of  modern  science. 
How  is  tbis  to  stand  with  the  present  state  of  know- 
ledge ?     Flerc,  they  would  say,  we  have  most  palpably 


THE   FIRMAMENT.  103 

presented  the  old  erroneous  conception  of  a  material 
skj,  or  solid  firmament,  witli  a  reservoir  of  water  above 
separated  from  the  waters  below.  It  is  the  same  image 
we  have  in  Job,  xxxvii,  18,  of  the  heavens  being  spread 
out  as  a  "  molten  looking-glass,"  or  in  Isaiah,  xl,  22, 
where  the  Prophet  compares  them  to  a  pitched  tent. 
It  is,  says  the  objector,  the  child's  conception  of  the 
phenomena  ;  it  might  do  for  the  childhood  of  the  world, 
but  it  will  not  do  for  men  of  science,  or  a  scientific  age. 
Now,  we  may  say,  in  the  language  of  Job  to  one  of 
his  vaunting  comforters, — -"  Who  knoweth  not  all  this  ?" 
The  amount  of  it  is,  that  the  language  presents  appear- 
ances, and  not  the  interior  truths  or  facts,  whatever  thej 
may  be.  Certain  facts  in  the  process  and  order  of  crea- 
tion are  to  be  narrated,  and  these  facts  are  named,  in 
the  only  way  they  could  be  named,  from  the  phenomena 
they  outwardly  present ;  and  these  phenomena,  again, 
are  named  in  the  use  of  the  articulate  language,  whether 
direct  or  metaphorical,  which  custom,  or  accident,  or 
knowledge,  or  imagination,  or  any  other  cause,  had 
attached  to  them.  '-  Who  knoweth  not  all  this  ?"  we, 
too,  may  say  it  to  the  objector  who  parades  his  little  science 
against  the  Scriptures.  Perhaps  we  may  also  venture 
the  opinion  that  Moses  knew  it  too  ;  that  is,  he  may  have 
known  that  his  words  were  phenomenal.  He  may  have 
used  the  language  of  his  day  very  much  as  we  use  it, 
or  as  we  use  our  own,  without  feeling  himself  called 
upon  to  enter  a  caveat  against  mistakes  of  its  concep- 
tional  meaning.  Or  he  may  have  been  partially  ignor- 
ant, knowing  less  than  we  do  about  the  matter  and  more 
than  the  primitive  men,  from  whom  came  down  the  lan- 
guage he  was  compelled  to  employ.     Or  he  may  have 


104  WORK   OF  THE   SECOND   DAY. 

been  wholly  ignorant,  and  known  no  difference  between 
the  absolute  fact  or  truth  he  was  made  the  medium  of 
setting  forth,  and  the  phenomenal  conception  by  which 
it  was  represented  in  his  own  mind,  or  the  mind  of  his 
age.  The  f)rinciple  is  still  the  same,  whether  there  be  a 
wide  difierence  between  the  fact  and  the  conception  of 
the  fact,  or  a  less  difference  ;  for  difference  there  will 
be  even  to  the  highest  science  ;  and  it  cannot  be  a  mat- 
ter of  degree. 

ThQfact,  which  God's  wisdom  deemed  it  necessary  to 
reveal  to  mankind,  was  this,  —  that  in  the  period  after 
the  first  division  or  separation  of  the  light,  or  fire,  the 
next  supernatural  or  creative  step  in  the  series,  was  the 
evolving,  from  the  yet  semi-chaotic  world,  of  what  we 
now  call  the  atmosphere,  but  which  Moses  describes  by 
language  less  scientifically  correct,  although,  in  fact,  no 
more  phenomenal  than  that  which  we  are  still  compelled 
to  use.  The  chronological  order  of  the  fact  was  the 
great  truth,  and  to  the  knowledge  of  this  no  science  ever 
has  attained,  or  would  have  attained,  without  revelation. 
The  event  itself  was  the  origination  and  completion  of 
that  apparatus  of  physical  law,  or  that  physical  state  of 
things,  be  it  scientifically  whatever  it  may  —  for  we 
do  not  yet  know  in  all  respects  what  it  is — by  which 
were  produced  the  combined  appearances  of  the  clouds, 
the  rain,  the  blue  heavens,  together  with  other  outward 
revealing  phenomena  connected  with,  and  representative 
of,  such  interior  causality.  The  beginning  of  this  was 
the  second  supernatural  act  in  the  series  of  creations,  or 
divisions.  No  working  or  development  of  any  previously 
organized  nature  would  ever  have  produced  it.  Without 
this  new  creative  energy,  the  earth  would  never  have 


THE   FIRMAMENT.  106 

gone  beyond  the  first  clay's  progress.  It  would  never 
have  had  an  atmosphere,  or  clouds,  or  rain,  or  arched 
firmament ;  but  must  have  continued,  in  these  respects, 
in  that  same  state  in  which  astronomy  makes  it  probable 
that  some  bodies  in  the  solar  and  stellar  systems  may 
yet  remain.  That  this  then  took  place,  or  began  to  take 
place,  and  that  it  was  the  divinely  caused  change  of  the 
second  creative  period,  is  the  fact  revealed.  Moses 
describes  it,  not  only  in  the  only  way  he  could  describe 
it,  but  in  the  only  way  in  which  he  and  others  of  his  age 
could  conceive  it.  This  fact  was  represented  to  his  mind 
very  much  as  it  is  still  represented  to  our  minds,  -with  all 
our  boasted  science,  namely,  by  the  very  appearances  or 
phenomena  through  which  he  sets  it  forth.  When  we 
let  go  these  phenomena,  or  dismiss  them  from  our 
thoughts,  and  talk  of  rarefactions  and  condensations, 
and  reflections  and  refractions,  and  specific  gravities,  we 
have  scientific  formulas,  and  scientific  symbols,  but  hardly 
any  conceptions  whatever.  The  more  scientific  our  state- 
ments, the  more  abstract  and  the  more  conceptionless  are 
they,  until  in  this  respect  the  language  becomes  almost 
as  unpictorial,  as  unimaginative,  as  that  of  the  math- 
ematician, or  of  the  analytical  astronomer  who  regards 
i\\Q  heavens  only  as  furnishing  convenient  diagrams  for 
his  calculus  of  functions  and  forces,  or  abstract  dynami- 
cal entities.  Now,  in  the  Mosaic  account  the  phenome- 
nal is  every  where,  and  everj-thing.  It  is  addressed 
directly  to  the  senses,  or  to  the  intellect  through  the 
senses.  It  sets  forth  the  origin,  not  of  what  is  in  itself. 
but  of  Avhat  we  see,  and  as  we  see  it,  —  ra  /SXEToVeva, 
<ra  cpaivoasva,  (Hebrews,  xi,  3,)  —  "the  things  that  are 
seen,^^  or  '•  the  things  that  do  appear^^^  as  representa- 


106  WORK    OF   THE    SECOND    DAY. 

tive,  9'wv  voou/xs'vwv,  of  the  powers  that  are  understood  or 
believed  to  exist  back  of  them,  and  which  will  still  exist 
back  of  them,  however  much  our  phenomenal  language 
may  be  changed  or  improved  bj  the  progress  of  science. 
Thus,  when  we  saj^  the  blue  sky,  —  one  of  the  results  of 
an  atmosphere,  and  without  which  in  the  present  state 
of  things  the  heavens  above  us  would  be  as  dark  as 
Erebus,  —  when  we  talk  of  the  vault  of  heaven  spread 
out  like  a  molten  mirror,  or 

"  Like  an  ocean  hung  on  high," — 

when  we  fancy  the  clouds  sailing  in  it  like  vessels  filled 
with  fluid,  and  the  waters  above  as  appearing  to  descend 
out  of  a  reservoir  from  which  the  waters  below  seem 
parted  by  these  phenomenal  heavens,  we  have  the  ima- 
ges or  pictures  presented  to  the  mind  by  the  articulate 
Hebrew  words  employed.  But  it  should  be  remembered 
that  in  this  —  as  in  fact  in  ahnost  all  other  use  of  lan- 
guage, even  the  most  common  language  —  there  is  a 
second  stage  in  the  process.  The  articulate  or  written 
words  present  the  phenomena  ;  but  the  phenomena,  too, 
are  a  language  ;  and  they  present,  or  rather  re-present 
to  those  who  understand  (however  partially  or  obscurely 
they  may  understand  them,  and  whether  by  faith  or  sci- 
ence,) the  otherwise  ineffable  fact  or  facts  that  stand 
behind,  far  behind,  it  may  be,  infinitely  behind,  these 
primal  appearances,  these  first  universally  known  letters 
in  the  alphabet  of  God's  speech  to  man.  We  say  other- 
wise  ineffable,  for  it  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that 
science,  after  all,  can  herself  make  the  revelation  in  no 
other  way.  She  only,  as  she  advances,  substitutes  other 
and  more  interior  phenomena  in  place  of  the  outward, 


THE   FIRMAMENT.  I07 

the  earlier,  the  simpler,  the  more  vivid,  which  she  casts 
awaj  Avith  so  much  scorn. 

Still  the  ultimate  fact  or  power  is  i7ieffahle,  and  to  a 
higher  science  in  some  most  remote  ^om  olam^  or  latter 
'•  day  of  eternity,"  the  language  of  our  books  may  actually 
appear  as  childlike,  as  erroneous,  as  that  of  Moses  and 
Job  does  to  a  savan  of  the  19th  century.  AVe  may  even 
say  more  erroneous ;  for  the  language  of  science  when 
it  fails,  or  has  become  obsolete,  exhibits  always  the 
appearance  of  childish  folly  and  pretense,  v^hereas  that 
drawn  from  primal  and  universal  phenomena  never  loses 
its  early  bloom  and  manUness.  Who  can  help  feeling 
how  much  more  truthful,  as  well  as  more  dignified,  is  the 
language  of  Closes  than  would  have  been  the  cycles  and 
epicycles,  and  other  technics  of  the  exploded  Ptolemaic 
science  ?  Ages  hence,  too,  how  much  more  truthful 
may  it  be  felt  to  be,  than  our  gravities,  our  centripetal 
and  centrifugal  forces,  our  nebular  condensations,  or  any 
of  those  once  lauded  terms  which  a  future  astronomy  or 
meteorology  may  lay  away  among  the  rubbish  of  almost 
forgotten  centuries. 

Science  has  indeed  enlarged  our  field  of  thought,  and 
for  this  we  will  be  thankful  to  God  and  to  scientific  men. 
But  what  is  it,  after  all,  that  she  has  given  us,  or  can 
give  us,  but  a  knowlege  of  phenomena  — of  appearances  f 
"What  arc  her  boastec>  laws,  but  genera hzations  of  such 
phenomena  ever  resolving  themselves  into  some  one 
great  fact,  that  seems  to  be  an  original  energy,  whilst 
evermore  the  application  of  a  stronger  lens  to  our 
analytical  telescope  resolves  such  seeming  primal  force 
int<)  an  appearance^  a  manifestation  of  something  still 
more  remote,  which,  in  this  way,  and  in  this  way  alone, 


108  WORK   OF   THE   SECOND   DAY. 

reveals  its  presence  to  our  senses.  Thus  the  course  of 
human  science  has  ever  been  the  substitution  of  one  set 
of  conceptions  for  another.  Firmaments  have  given 
place  to  concentric  spheres,  spheres  to  empja^eans,  empy- 
reans to  cycles  and  epicycles,  epicycles  to  vortices, 
vortices  to  gravities  and  fluids  ever  demanding  for  the 
theoretic  imagination  other  fluids  as  the  only  conditions 
on  which  their  action  could  be  made  conceivable. 

And  this  process  is  still  going  on.  In  the  primitive 
times  the  sun  appeared.^  and  was  understood^  perhaps, 
to  revolve  round  the  earth.  Very  early — -we  know  not 
how  early — -came  the  oriental  theory  which  was  after- 
wards held  by  Pythagoras.  This,  like  the  modern  Coper- 
nican,  put  the  sun  in  the  centre,  although  it  did  not  main- 
tain itself  against  the  more  common  hypothesis  that 
claimed  to  be  grounded  on  observation  and  induction. 
Later  astronomy,  however,  reversed  the  decision.  It 
placed  the  sun  again  in  the  centre  ;  and  now  it  was  thought 
we  had  at  last  reached  a  fixed  fact  in  the  universe.  But 
alas  for  the  doctrine  that  would  maintain  that  "  anything 
stands"  and  that  all  things  are  not  eternally  moving,  a 
science  still  more  modern  is  displacing  this  once  immovable 
centre  for  some  other  and  immenselj^  more  remote  pivot 
of  revolution.  There  is  no  end  to  this,  —  no  end  in  theorv 
—and  the  present  scientific  view  of  some  great  millenial  or 
millio-millenial  period  will  only  stand  because  the  short- 
ness of  human  observation,  even  continued  during  the 
age  of  the  race,  can  get  no  visible  data  for  anything 
beyond  it. 

Thus,  also,  in  regard  to  the  phenomena  of  light.  The 
earliest  Hebrew  conception  was  that  of  Jiorns,  or  simple 
radiations  diverging  from  a  point,  such  as  the  Prophet 


THE   FIRMA3IENT.  109 

Habakkuk  speaks  of  (iii,  4)  — ''  His  brightness  was  as 
the  light ;  he  had  horns  (tza-'ini?,  Greek,  xs^ara  or  >cs^auvoi,) 
coming  out  of  his  hands,  and  there  was  the  hiding  of  his 
power."*  Science  has  long  been  in  search  of  this  hidden 
power.  The  old  phenomenal  xe'^ara,  or  diverging  pencils, 
gave  way  to  the  effluxes,  or  diaphanous  fluids  of  the 
Greek  physics ;  they  came  back  again  in  the  optical 
radii  of  the  Newtonians,  to  be  again  superseded  by  what 
is  in  substance  the  old  Aristotelian  hypothesis  returning 
in  the  undulating  or  wave  theory. 

There  has  been  a  similar  process  in  the  department 
of  pneumatology.  Common  air  was  at  first  supposed  to 
be  the  most  subtile  of  all  material  substances, — if  mate- 
rial substance  it  was — and  was,  therefore,  taken  as  the 
best  representative  of  spirit  or  immateriality.  It  fur- 
nished that  conception — not  the  idea  or  notion,  which  is  a 
very  different  thing — but  that  conception  of  soul  or  spirit 
which  is  to  be  found  in  the  roots  of  almost  every  language, 
Next  came  the  aether,  the  quintessence,  or  fifth  element. 
In  more  modern  times,  electricity  and  magnetism  are 
the  great  words  of  ignorance  as  well  as  of  science ;  and 
these,  in  turn,  are  yielding  to  that  unkno^vn  fluid  in  which 
it  is  supposed  will  be  found  the  elemental  unity  of  all 
force.  By  a  like  process  the  old  element,  fire,  became 
transmuted  into  phlogiston,  and  phlogiston  into  the  modern 
caloric.  But  we  are  still  no  nearer  the  remote  primal 
fact  or  facts,  although  a  vast  amount  of  useful  knowledge 

*  We  have  the  verb,  Exodus,  xxxiv,  29,  xxx,  35,  where 
it  is  said,  "  The  face  of  Moses  shone'^ — most  strangely  ren- 
dered cornutum  (horned)  by  the  Yulgate.  The  same  sense 
is  given  by  Aquila.  The  true  renderinf^  in  Habakkuk,  iii, 
8,  should  have  been,  "  He  had  rays  or  flashes  from  his 
hands."     Hence  the  Greek  x5|ai;voi. 

10 


110  WORK   OF   THE   SECOKD   DAY, 

has  been  obtained  in  the  process.  Each  of  these  con- 
ceptions maj  embrace  phenomena  not  conceived  before^ 
and  thus  each  may  seem  comparatively  interior;  but 
they  are  all  yet  upon  the  outside,  and  we  may  say, 
equally  upon  the  outside,  in  respect  to  the  great  truth  or 
truths  they  represent.  They  are  all  phenomenal,  or 
conceptional.  They  are  all  alike  the  outward  signs  of 
the  things  unseen  (Ta  voo;;>£va)  —  of  hidden  powers  or 
truths  which  we  may  receive  by  reason  and  by  revela- 
tion, but  which  eye  cannot  see,  nor  any  sense  perceive, 
neither  can  it  enter  into  the  imagination,  or  imaging 
faculty,  of  man  ever  to  conceive. 

If,  then,  absolute  correctness  of  representation  is  aimed 
at,  a  revelation  of  God's  creative  acts  could  no  more 
endorse  one  scientific  theory  than  another.  What  would 
now  have  been  the  credit  of  the  Scriptures,  had  they 
been  written  in  the  style  of  the  xlristotelian  or  Ptolemaic 
science,  which  in  its  day,  perhaps,  was  thought  to  be  the 
ne  plus  ultra  of  astronomical  truth  ?■ — a  system  so  far 
complete  that  if  it  did  not  contain  all  the  facts,  it  was 
supposed,  at  least,  to  furnish  the  best  language,  and  the 
best  method,  through  which  they  could  be  represented. 
And  yet  this  grand  old  Book  of  God  still  stands,  and  will 
continue  to  stand,  though  science  and  philosophy  are 
ever  changing  their  countenances  and  passing  away.  It 
is  one  of  the  few  things  in  our  world  that  never  becomes 
obsolete.  It  speaks  the  language  of  all  ages,  and  is 
adapted  to  all  cHmes.  Ever  clear  and  ever  young,  it 
has  the  same  power  for  the  later  as  for  the  early  mind ; 
it  is  as  much  the  religious  vernacular  of  the  occidental 
as  of  the  oriental  races.  Instead,  then,  of  being  its 
defect,  it  is  its  great,  its  divine  wisdom,  that  it  commits 


THE  FIRMAMENT.  Ill 

itself  to  no  scientific  system  or  scientific  language,  whilst 
yet  it  brings  before  the  mind  those  primal  facts  which 
no  science  can  ever  reach,  and  for  this  purpose  uses 
those  first  vivid  conceptions  which  no  changes  in  science 
and  no  obsoleteness  in  language  can  ever  wholly  impair. 
The  wonder  is  that  such  objections  should  have  been 
so  pertinaciously  made  against  one  or  two  parts  of  the 
Bible,  when  they  may  be  taken  almost  everywhere ;  or 
that  good  men,  and  learned  men,  should  condemn  as  un- 
natural a  mode  of  interpretation  in  Genesis  which  they 
employ  with  so  much  ease,  and  without  any  conscious- 
ness of  its  being  forced,  in  so  many  other  passages  of  the 
Scriptures.  This  kind  of  phenomenal  language  (we 
use  the  term  here  in  distinction  from  the  poetical  or  con- 
fessedly figurative)  pervades  every  part  of  the  Bible. 
We  can  hardly  read  a  chapter  without  meeting  with  it. 
"  Our  Father  in  the  Heavens  ^  The  latter  word  is  the 
antithesis  of  earth ;  and  so  we  all  understand  it,  although 
there  may  have  been  originally  accompanying  this  plural 
form  of  expression  the  conception  of  a  heaven  above  the 
visible  heavens,  and  which  was  the  peculiar  abode  of 
Ood.  So,  also,  we  are  told,  John,  xvii,  1,  "  Jesus  lifted 
up  his  eyes  to  Heaven  and  said ;"  again,  Luke,  ix,  16, 
"  He  took  the  bread  and  looked  up  to  Heaven,  and 
brake  and  blessed."  This  is  not  only  the  language  of 
zvords,  but  of  action,  of  sacred  action,  too,  which  can  in 
no  sense  be  regarded  as  an  accommodation  to  vulgar  pre- 
judices. It  came  from  the  same  conception,  and  that 
conception  still  continues,  and  will  continue,  although 
we  understand  by  faith  of  Scripture  (Psalm  cxxxix,  9, 10, 
Jeremiah,  xxiii,  24)  as  well  as  by  the  deductions  of 
reason^  that  God  is  everywhere.     But  this  had  become 


112  WORK   OF  THE   SECOND  DAY. 

the  language  and  attitude  of  prayer,  and  what  pious  soul 
would  part  with  its  touching  vividness  for  all  that  science 
had  ever  taught,  or  philosojDhy  dreamed,  in  opposition  to 
the  literal  image  it  conveyed.  Thus  freely  and  ration- 
ally do  we  deal  with  other  parts  of  the  Bible ;  but  when 
we  come  to  Genesis,  all  is  reversed.  The  day  shall 
have  its  exact  twenty-four  hours  of  the  same  length  as 
those  that  are  measured  by  our  modern  clocks ;  the 
morning  and  the  evening  shall  be  the  same  that  are  now 
made  by  our  rising  and  setting  suns ;  the  heavens  shall 
mean  all  that  astronomy  would  include  within  the  term, 
and  all  the  stars  and  stellar  systems  they  contain  shall 
have  their  creation  cotemporaneous  with  our  earth,  and 
all  finished  within  the  period  of  one  literal  week ;  or,  if 
we  cannot  bring  ourselves  to  admit  a  literal  firmament, 
some  Hutchinsonian  theory  must  be  brought  in  as  much 
at  war  with  the  simplicity  and  dignity  of  the  Bible,  as  it 
is  in  the  face  of  all  fair  science. 

What  is  still  more  strange  —  it  will  in  general  be 
found  that  those  who  take  the  most  capricious  freedom 
in  extending  the  prophetic  symbols  of  the  future,  are  the 
most  narrow  in  their  interpretations  of  this  mysterious 
record  of  the  equally  mysterious  past.  The  "  evening 
and  the  morning"  of  Daniel's  vision*  are  very  readily 

*  It  does  not  appear  in  our  translation  of  Daniel,  viii,  14, 
that  the  words  there  rendered  "  days"  are  exactly  the  phrase 
in  Genesis — "  a  morning  and  an  evening."  So,  also,  in  the 
same  chapter,  v,  26,  the  whole  prediction  is  called  "  the 
vision  of  the  morning  and  the  evening."  We  do  not  pretend 
to  interpret  the  passage  ;  but  is  it  extravagant  to  suppose, 
that  in  both  cases  the  same  strange  language  is  used  for  the 
same  purpose, — namely,  to  take  from  the  reader's  mind  the 
idea  of  ordinary  days,  and  suggest  the  thought  of  some  unu- 
sual and  higher  cycles  ? 


THE   FIRMAMENT.  113 

interpreted,  as  having  a  vastly  extended  or  aeonian  sense. 
There,  and  in  the  Revelations,  there  is  no  diflSculty  in 
taking  days  for  years,  and  years  for  ages,  if  need  be ; 
whilst  in  Genesis  the  same  interpreters  will  hear  to  no- 
thing but  the  ordinary  clock  measured  times, —  and  that, 
too,  notwithstanding  that  in  the  former  cases  the  warrant 
for  the  wider  meaning  is  far  less  clear  than  that  which 
may  be  fairly  drawn  from  the  whole  spirit  and  aspect  of 
this  mysterious  history  of  the  ante-Adamic  periods. 
Rapid  and  brief  as  is  the  account,  the  spirit  of  vastness, 
as  we  may  soberly  call  it,  breathes  in  every  part ;  and 
yet  prophecy  is  rolled  out  to  millenia,  whilst  in  opposi- 
tion to  all  analogy,  creation,  with  its  stupendous  changes 
and  grand  series  of  developments,  is  shut  up  to  a  time 
less  than  that  required  for  the  germination  of  a  plant,  or 
the  growth  of  the  foetus  in  the  womb. 

And  here,  although  it  may  seem  somewhat  out  of 
place  in  our  direct  argument,  we  may  be  permitted  to 
dwell  on  the  somewhat  analogous  language  of  the  Scrip- 
ture in  relation  to  the  growth  of  the  human  foetus. 

If  it  be  objected  to  the  comparison,  that  creation  is  a 
confessedly  supernatural  act,  while  generation  is  a  natu- 
ral process,  we  can  only  answer  that  in  Scripture  the 
same  formative  language  is  applied  to  the  origin  of  the 
world  as  to  the  origin  and  growth  of  the  body.  Thus, 
in  Jeremiah,  i,  4,  '^  Before  I  formed  thee  in  the  ivomh.^"* 
The  word  *n:|;,  here  employed,  has  more  of  the  idea  of 
fabrication,  or  direct  workmanship,  than  either  n'^?  or  ^"^^^ 
as  in  Psalm  xciv,  9,  ^y.  nsi^,  "  He  that  formed  the  eye, 
shall  he  not  see  ?"  It  is  the  same  word  used.  Genesis, 
ii,  19, —  "  And  the  Lord  Qo^  formed  man  ("1^*5)  from  the 
dust  of  the  earth,"     So,  also,  "  He  who  formed  the 

10* 


114  WORK   OF  THE   SECOND   DAY. 

mountains,  and  created  the  wind,"  Amos,  iv,  13.  "He 
who  is  the  former  of  all,"  Jeremiah,  x,  16,  ^^n  "H^sn  ^2'^ 
God  not  only  created  our  generic  humanity  in  the  begin- 
ning, but  also  originates  the  individual  life,  and  in  certain 
respects  regulates  and  fashions  the  individual  growth. 
Perhaps,  if  we  knew  all  about  it,  we  might  say  that  in 
this  subordinate  cpv(fis,  growth^  nature^  yhsdig^  generation^ 
nn^in  —  all  which  words  present  radically  the  same  con- 
ception—  there  is  also  a  mixture  of  the  natural  and 
supernatural,  analogous  to  that  which  took  place  in  the 
mundane  work.  There  are  the  days  or  periods  of 
quickeniiig,  and  then,  supervening  on  them,  a  season  or 
seasons  of  repose,  in  which  physical  law,  the  physical 
law  both  of  the  material  and  the  sentient  nature, 
carries  on  the  processes  thus  begun,  or  thus  renewed. 
As  the  foetus  grows  in  this  hidden  tvorld,  which  the 
Psalmist  compares  to  the  *'  lowest  parts  of  the  earth," 
there  is  doubtless  a  most  important  part  performed  by 
nature.  She  is  its  nursing  mother,  her  powers  are  its 
viliment,  her  laws  its  silent  fashioners.  And  yet,  if  we 
would  avoid  the  grossest  materialism,  we  must  conclude 
that  there  are  some  things,  even  in  this  seemingly 
natural  process,  which  nature  never  could  have  done, 
—  something  to  which  all  her  chemistry,  and  all  her  laws 
of  physical  life,  could  never  have  given  the  beginning  of 
existence.  "  For  thou  hast  possessed  my  reins.  Thou 
didst  overshadow*  me  in  my  mother's  womb.    I  will  praise 

^Thou  didst  overshadoiv,  Hebrew,  ^ss&n.  The  word  here 
is  very  remarkable.  The  Hebrew  strikingly  corresponds  to 
the  Greek  word  used  (Luke,  i,  35)  in  the  announcement  of 
the  immaculate  conception — h  Sjvaixig  T-^'k^to-o  s-TrirfxiatTsi  (Toi. 
Tt  sio-nifies  to  overshadoiv,  or  to  cover  like  an  overshadoiv- 
ing  ;°Luther  renders  it— Du  warest  iiber  mir  im  Mutterleibe. 


THE  FIBMAMEHT.  115 

Thee,  0  Lord,  for  I  am  fearfully  and  TvonderfuUy  made ; 
marvellous  are  thy  works,  and  that  my  soul  knoweth 
right  well.     My  bone   was  not  hid  from  thee, — that 

The  LXX  translate  it — 'AvrsXa/3ou  piou  sx  y(x(Sr^%  ps-il^r^o?  M'^^  ; 
in  which  it  has  been  followed  by  the  Syriac  and  the  Yulgate. 
The  true  idea,  however,  of  the  Hebrew  is  easily  obtained  from 
its  applications  in  other  places.  It  is  used  directly  for  cover- 
ing with  a  shadow,  Job,  xl,  22.  It  is  the  common  word 
to  express  the  overshadowing  of  the  cherubim  when  they 
spread  their  wings  over  the  mercy  seat.  It  suggests  here,  as 
well  as  in  Luke,  i,  35,  the  Hovering  or  Overshadowing  Spirit 
that  brooded  over  the  dark  chaotic  waters  in  the  foetal  incep- 
tion of  our  world.'  Certainly  it  is  something  more  than  mere 
fancy  that  traces  this  remarkable  image  in  all  these  passages 
where  there  is  thus  spoken  of  the  origination  of  a  new  life, 
whether  in  nature,  or  out  of  nature,  or  through  nature,  or  by 
a  direct  addition  of  something  to  which  the  previous  nature 
never  could  have  given  birth. 

With  all  reverence  would  we  tread  upon  this  most  sacred 
ground,  and  yet  without  profanity  may  it  be  suggested,  that 
the  immaculate  conception  has  some  resemblance,  or  analogy, 
to  the  human  generation.  The  one  was  all  divine  ;  the  other 
is  partially  so.  One  is  the  beginning  of  a  new  humanity  mys- 
teriously connected  with  the  old  ;  the  other  is  the  repeated 
(Quickening  of  the  old  manhood,  rec^uiring  in  every  case  the 
supernatural  interposition  of  the  Father  of  Spirits,  at  least,  as 
regards  the  rational  and  moral  life.  As  far  as  any  danger 
of  materialism  is  concerned,  we  might  safely  hold  with  Tertul- 
lian,  and  'paHially  with  Augustine,  the  doctrine  of  spiritual 
traduction ;  but  we  think  the  force  of  certain  expressions  in  the 
Scriptures  is  against  it.  It  may  be  maintained,  too,  that  the 
corresponding  terms,  when  used  of  the  new  spiritual  birth, 
are  not  mere  illustrative  similes,  but  present  the  truest  concep- 
tion of  the  absolute  fact.  "Behold,  in  iniquity  was  I  formed, 
and  in  sin  did  my  mother  conceive  me."  Nature's  work  was 
spiritually  marred  and  ruined ;  but  it  is  God  who  creates  the 
clean  heart,  and  renovates  the  quickened  spirit.  We  may 
not  understand,  or  be  able  to  explain  all  these  terms,  but  we 
are  safe  in  calling  it  a  new,  an  added  life,,  in  distinction  from 
a  mere  regulative  process,  whether  moral  or  physical,  regarded 
as  going  on  in  the  old  nature. 


116  WORK   OF  THE   SECOND   DAY. 

from  which  I  was  made  and  curiously  wrought  in  the 
lowest  part  of  the  earth*.  Mj  substance  yet  unwroughtf 
did  thine  eyes  behold,  and  in  thy  book  were  they  all 
written,  even  the  daysX  (the  periods)  in  which  they  were 
formed,  when  as  yet  there  was  none  of  them,"  Psalms, 
cxxxix,  13,  etc.  May  we  not  soberly  think  that  in  this 
wonderful  passage  there  is  a  parallel  presented  between 
the  embryo  and  the  terrestrial  creation ;  and  that  in  the 
overshadowing  divinity,  the  unwrought  substance,  the 
curiously  divided  or  embroidered  work,  and  the  book- 
recorded  days  of  the  one,  we  have  allusilons  to  the  hover- 
ing or  brooding  Spirit,  the  watery  chaos,  the  varied  arch- 
itectonal  divisions,  and  the  grand  periods  of  the  other  ? 

But  it  is  time  to  return  to  our  regular  interpretation. 
With  the  remarks  that  have  been  made,  we  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  admit,  to  the  fullest  extent,  the  strictly  phenomenal 
nature  of  the  language  employed  in  this  account  of  the 
work  of  the  second  period,  or  the  scientific  error,  be  it 

*This  is  taken  by  some  in  the  same  manner  as  the  expres- 
sion, ra  xarc^TS^a  i^s^y]  rr,s  775?,  Ephesians,  iv,  9,  for  "this 
lower  world,"  in  distinction  from  the  heavens  ;  but  the  simile 
given  by  the  other  rendering  suits  best  the  whole  spirit  of 
the  passage. 

t  Hebrew,  •'5a^A,  From  the  use  of  the  verb,  2  Kings,  ii, 
8,  and  the  related  noun  t=^53!)Va,  Ezekiel,  xxvii,  4,  we  might 
conclude  that  the  best  sense  for  this  was  involucrum.  By  the 
Rabbins  it  is  used  for  mass.  LXX  render  it  axarsp^afl'Tov, 
almost  identical  in  meaning  with  the  term  axaTadxsuadrov, 
applied  to  the  earth.  Genesis,  i,  12.  Vulgate — imperfectum 
meum,  my  umurought.  Symmachus — a|xo^9WTov,  my  un- 
formed, or  formless,  or  chaotic  substance. 

t  Hebrew,  !:n::.;>  t=^5a\  Luther — Und  waren  alle  Tage 
auf  dein  Buch  geschrieben.  Vulgate — Dii,s  formabantur. 
Rosenmliller — Non  uno  momento,  sed  progressu  temporis — 
de  die  in  diem — ex  informe  mole. 


THE  FIRMAJVIENT.  117 

more  or  less,  contained  in  it.  And  God  said,  ^•'j?'^  "^^.^ — 
yswi&TjTu  drs^iuiia. — fiat  firmamentum — sit  expansum^ — 
"let  there  be  a  firmament,"  etc.  The  Hebrew  word 
primarily  denotes  something  ex2:)anded^  or  beaten  out,  like 
a  metallic  plate,  (Exodus,  xxxix,  3,  Numbers,  xvii,  4.) 
Such  is  the  literal  sense  of  the  root  from  which  it  comes, 
and  such,  too,  is  the  suggested  sense  of  the  Greek  drsfcoi^M 
and  the  Latin  firmamentum.  They  denote  solidity,  but 
this  belongs  only  to  the  phenomenal  conception  such  as  is 
also  presented  in  the  ou^avw  itok^x^'^'x-^  and  ou^avw  (fi6y]^i(*}, 
of  Homer.  We  would,  however,  have  no  right  to  infer 
from  this  that  Moses  believed  in  a  vaulted  sohdity, 
although  such  an  admission  would  not  in  the  least  affect 
our  argument.  This  language,  like  all  the  rest,  is  phe- 
nomenal. It  presents  the  appearance,  and  Moses  uses 
the  appearance  as  the  name  or  representative  of  the  fact. 
With  him  the  fact  and  the  appearance  may  or  may  not 
have  been  one  and  the  same  ;  but  we  are  not  bound  by 
his  individual  conception,  nor  is  the  essential  truth  of 
Scripture  committed  to  it.  To  express  the  same  pheno- 
mena, Luther  admirably  uses  the  German  Feste ;  but, 
perhaps,  the  best  of  all  would  be  the  Latin  exp)ansum ; 
as  the  conception  of  solidity  early  becomes  obsolete  in  the 
Hebrew  applications,  whilst  this  remains  as  the  universal 
idea.  From  the  same  appearance  came  afterwards  the 
conception  of  the  concentric  spheres,  or  imagined  firma- 
ments carried  farther  off  as  crystalHne  separations 
between  the  planetary  and  empyrean  heavens, — "  those 
flaming  walls  of  the  world,"  as  Lucretius  most  poetically 
expresses  it, 

flammantia  moenia  mundi, 


118  WORK   OF  THE   SECOND  DAY. 

ever  bounding  the  sense,  but  throwing  themselves  open 
to  reason  and  faith,  or  the 

vivida  vis  animi 

seeking  to  penetrate  into  the  "  things  that  do  not  appear." 
These  spheres,  however,  it  should  be  remembered,  en- 
tered for  some  time  even  into  scientific  language,  and 
however  much  they  may  have  been  banished  from  the 
text-book,  they  still  maintain  their  place  as  firmly  as 
ever  in  all  our  pictorial  imaginings  of  the  celestial  system. 

Here,  too,  it  should  be  observed,  is  a  modified  use  of 
the  word  heaven,  somewhat  changed  from  the  univer- 
sality of  its  application  in  the  first  verse.  In  the  lan- 
guage of  science,  we  might  say  it  is  the  atmospherical, 
in  distinction  from  the  astronomical  heavens.  In  the 
Mosaic  conception,  however,  the  one  is  not  yet  parted 
from  the  other.  There  is  the  same  sensible  limit  to 
both.  It  is  the  visible  firmament,  or  what  we  call  the 
sky, — whether  this  be  the  same  with  the  Greek  cx/a,  (or 
shade,)  so  called  from  its  blue  color,  or  the  Saxon  seiene, 
German  schbn,  Danish  skion,  the  shining,  the  clear,  the 
beautiful. 

But  why  might  not  all  this  have  been  said  in  the  mo- 
dern and  more  correct  language  ?  Why  might  it  not 
have  been  said — some  one  may  reply — as  the  author 
has  said  it  in  his  description  or  explanation  of  the  fact 
set  forth.  Certainly  Deity  could  have  made  it  as  plain 
as  the  commentator  has  done,  or  attempted  to  do.  We 
answer — He  has  done  so — He  has  made  it  far  more 
clear,  infinitely  more  clear.  Had  he  employed  our  lan- 
guage, it  might  have  answered  for  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, although  very  imperfectly  even  for  that;  but  it 
would  have  been  unintelligible  to  the  ages  that  have 


THE   FIRMAMENT.  119 

preceded  us,  just  as  it  will  be  quaint,  and  obsolete,  and 
childish,  perhaps,  in  ages  to  come.  Divine  Wisdom  has 
adopted  a  better  method.  It  has  employed  words  and 
images  which  never  can  become  obsolete.  It  has  marked 
the  fact,  and  the  order  of  the  fact  in  the  sequences  of 
creation,  bj  phenomena  which  no  one  can  mistake,  and 
which  speak  a  language  the  same  for  all  seeing  eyes,  for 
all  conceiving  minds,  for  all  states  of  philosophy,  ^nd  all 
ages  of  the  world. 

But  whilst  the  explanatory  and  scientific  style  the 
author  has  adopted  is  not  so  clear,  it  no  more  escapes 
the  charge  of  being  phenomenal.  We  talk  of  atmo- 
spheres,  and  clouds,  and  refractions,  and  reflections  of 
light  that  produce  the  appearance  which  Moses  called 
the  expanse  or  firmament.  But  what  is  an  atmosphere  ? 
It  is  aT//,ou  (fcpuT^a,  a  sphere  or  ball  of  vapor.  That  is  our 
word,  but  it  is  no  less  phenomenal  than  firmamentumy 
?^n>  rfrc^i-w/xa,  expansum,  Feste.  There  is,  in  reality,  no 
such  sphere  or  ball  of  vapor.  It  is  not  limited  by  a 
defined  surface  like  the  ocean.  It  is  only  an  appearance. 
It  is  our  mode  of  picturing  or  conceiving  it.  It  may 
seem  a  little  more  scientific  than  the  most  ancient  view, 
but  all  that  we  can  say  is,  that  our  conception  imper- 
fectly represents  a  fact  or  a  power,  or  a  system  of  facts 
and  powers  in  nature,  and  so  did  the  Hebrew.  The 
same  will  hold  true  of  our  more  common  terms.  The 
word  cloud  we  would  call  literal  language,  with  nothing 
metaphorical  about  it ;  but  go  to  the  old  Saxon,  and  we 
find  a  root  related  to  the  Latin  cludo  claudo,  Greek 
xXcj(5,  to  shut,  enclose,  as  well  as  to  the  derivative  cloth 
—  all  presenting  the  same  image,  and  the  old  image,  of 
something  that  shuts  in,  holds,  or  contains,  like  a  bag. 


120  WORK   OF  THE    SECOND   DAY. 

We  recognize  it  in  Job,  xxvi,  8, — He  hindetli  the  waters 
in  his  cloud,  and  the  cloud  is  not  rent  under  them.  So 
also,  Proverbs,  xxx,  4,  —  Who  hindeth  up  the  waters  as 
in  a  garment.  We  talk,  too,  of  the  reflection,  or  bendiyig 
hack,  and  of  the  refraction,  or  breaking,  of  Hght.  So,  too, 
of  the  various  intermediate  phenomena,  through  which  is 
produced  the  great  phenomenon  of  the  the  visible  vaulted 
sky.  We  construct  our  scientific  representative  terms 
out  of  these  more  interior  appearances  which  science  has 
given  to  the  conception,  instead  of  deriving  them  at  once 
from  that  which  is  outward  and  ultimate  to  them  all. 
Such  is  our  scientific  language  ;  and  yet  further  science 
is  ever  showing,  not  only  its  phenomenal  character,  but 
its  utter  deficiency  when  we  would  make  its  conceptions 
identical  with,  instead  of  representative  of,  the  fact  or 
facts.  Truly,  had  God  waited  until  science  and  philoso- 
phy had  perfected  their  lexicon.  His  subhme  revelation 
of  the  order  of  the  world's  genesis,  would  never  have 
been  given  to  mankind.  For  it  is,  in  truth,  this  order, 
this  succession  of  facts,  and  not  the  philosophy  of  it, 
which  is  the  thing  made  known,  and  which  science  never 
would  have  discovered. 


CHAPTER  XL 


WORK   OF   THE   THIRD   DAY. 

THE   DIVISION   OF   LAND   AND   WATER. 

Does  the  spirit  in  ceeation  always  accompany  the  wobd?— The  Expasg- 

SION   "  UNDEK  THE   WHOLE  HEAVEN."— ThE   DRAWING    OFF  OF  THE  WATERS. — 

Interpretation  of  the  Hebrew  verb. — The  appearing  of  the  land. — 
The  creative  energy  in  the  earth.— The  upheaving  op  the  land. — 
Birth  of  the  mountains,— Psalm  xc  and  civ.— Drying  op  the  land, — 
Three  hypotheses.— The  supernatural  throughout.— The  natural  all 
IN  the  space  of  twenty-four  hours.— The  natural  with  an  indefinite 
period. — Was  there  a  suspension  of  the  properties  of  earth  and 
pluids  ? 

The  third  period  is  one  on  which  we  are  not  required  to 
dwell  at  any  great  length.  The  terms  employed  to  set 
forth  the  division  of  the  land  and  water,  present  points  of 
much  philological  interest,  and  demand  a  careful  examin- 
ation. But  the  work  of  the  second  part  of  this  creative 
day,  or  the  first  growth  of  vegetable  life,  would  be  con- 
sidered to  most  advantage  in  connection  with  the  fifth 
period,  along  with  the  production  of  the  animal  natures. 
As  the  light  first  comes  out  of  chaos,  then  the  atmo- 
sphere, or  the  separation  of  the  fluid  from  the  fluid,  that  is, 
the  aeriform  from  the  liquid,  so  have  we  next  the  separa- 
tion between  the  liquid  and  the  sohd.  It  is,  however,  not 
so  much  the  essential  as  the  phenomenal  division  that  is 
here  set  forth.  "  And  G-od  said,  Let  the  waters  which 
are  under  the  heaven  be  gathered  together  to  one  place, 
and  let  the  dry  land  appear."  It  is  a  proper  occasion 
here  to  say  something  farther  on  the  language  with  which 

11 


122  WORK   OF   THE   THIRD   DAT. 

each  division  commences.  We  have  already  presented 
the  view  "which  some  of  the  earhest  Fathers  maintained 
respecting  this  Word  of  the  Lord,  as  the  divine  energy 
going  forth,  the  Xo/oj  ^^090^1x0^,  manifesting  itself  in  the 
separation  and  distinction  of  what  before  was  blended 
and  indefinite.  Hence,  it  is  appropriately  called  a 
naming,  a  distinguishing.  To  the  same  view  vre  trace 
certain  expressions  in  other  parts  of  the  Bible.  As  in 
Psalm  cxlviii,  15, — '■^He  sent  forth  Jus  word — His  word 
runneth  very  swiftly. ^^  Psalm  xxxvi,  6, — "  By  the  word 
of  the  Lord  were  the  heavens  made,  and  all  their  hosts 
by  the  spirit  of  his  mouth."  Here,  as  in  some  other 
passages,  we  have  the  ivord  and  the  spirit  conjoined. 
And  this  suggests  the  thought,  whether  the  language  of 
the  second  verse,  ^'  the  Spirit  of  Grod  moved  upon  the 
face  of  the  water s,^^  should  not  be  repeated,  or  regarded 
as  repeated,  in  the  second  and  third,  as  well  as  in  the 
first  going  forth  of  the  creative  Word.  And  so  through- 
out ;  the  commencement  of  each  division,  or  of  the  morn- 
ing of  each  division,  is  marked  by  the  &ame  supernatural 
Presence,  as  well  as  the  same  supernatural  Word;  as 
though  we  had  read,  "And  again  the  Ruah  Elohim 
hovered,  or  brooded,  over  the  earth,  and  God  said,  Let 
the  waters  he  gatliered  and  the  dry  land  appear.''^  The 
new  energy  comes ;  the  power  of  obedience  is  simulta- 
neous with  the  command ;  the  Word  and  the  Spirit  go 
together ;  the  work  begins ;  nature  is  then  entrusted  with 
it,  and  the  history  of  the  change  is  afterwards  briefly 
expressed  by  the  common  formula  15"^!?^ — ''And  it 
was  80.^^  As  though  God  commended  nature  for  her 
diligence  and  obedience.  The  language  that  follows 
strongly  suggests  the  idea  of  a  superintending  Lord 


THE   DIVISION   or   LAND   AND   WATER.  123 

looking  forth  and  approving  of  the  work  of  a  faithful 
servant — "JL^ic?  Giod  saiv  that  it  ivas  good^ 

"And  God  said,  Let  the  waters  under  the  whole 
heaven  be  gathered  together,  and  let  the  dry  land 
appear."  The  exjDression,  '-^  under  the  tvhole  heaven^"*  is 
evidently  used  to  denote  universality,  in  universo  terra- 
ru7n  orhe;  as  in  Job,  xxxvii,  3,  xli,  3.  Compare,  espe- 
cially, Job  J  xxviii,  24, — "  He  looketh  under  the  whole 
heaven."     "  Let  the  waters  be  gathered  together," — 

t=3':^h  ill)?*;  —  LXX,  2uvap/^7j=rw  to  udu^  —  Vulgate,  Co7l- 
gregentur  aquae.  The  most  common  sense  of  srip  is  to 
hope^  to  tvait  'patiently ;  but  this  comes  from  the  rarer 
yet  still  distinct  primary  significance,  to  draxv  out,  stretch 
out;  precisely  as  the  Greek  verb,  h^zyiiLai,  where  the 
primary  and  secondary  senses  are  related  in  a  similiar 
manner.  ''Let  the  waters  he  drawn  off^  This  would 
give  us  the  true  image,  and  would  correspond  well  to  the 
sense  of  the  noun  n.-ii^^.  as  in  Exodus,  vii,  19,  Leviticus, 
xi,  36,  where  it  is  used  of  a  reservoir  of  waters,  in  dis- 
tinction from  a  spring  or  a  river,  and  Isaiah,  xxii,  11, 
where  the  same  word  with  a  slight  vowel  change,  is 
applied  to  a  public  reservoir  made  for  the  use  of  a  city, 
and  to  which  the  waters  from  the  neighboring  streams 
are  drawn.  The  force  of  the  passage  would  also  be  well 
given  by  the  old  Syraic  sense  of  the  root,  to  ahide^  to 
remain  permanently — "Let  the  waters  abide  in  one 
place,"  instead  of  being  diflfused,  as  heretofore,  and  wan- 
dering like  a  shoreless  ocean  under  the  whole  heaven. 
In  either  view,  the  use  of  these  old  primary  senses  is 
proof  of  the  antiquity  of  the  language  of  the  account. 

''And  let  the  dry  land  appear."     In  other  parts  of 
the  Bible,  where  there  is  a  reference  to  the  creation  aiJ.d 


124  WORK   OF  THE  THIRD  DAY. 

the  Mosaic  account  is  evidently  kept  in  view,  the  moun- 
tains and  valley/ s,  the  hills  and  plains,  form  prominent 
parts  of  the  picture ;  as  in  Proverbs,  viii,  25,  where  their 
settlement  or  foundation  is  placed  among  the  earliest 
antiquities  of  the  earth, — "  Before  the  mountains  were 
sunk,  (or  settled  on  their  bases)  before  the  hills  was  I 
born."  So,  also.  Psalms,  xc,  2, — "  Before  the  moun- 
tains were  born"  (or  generated.)  Compare  Psalms, 
civ,  5,  and  similar  expressions.  Job,  xxxviii,  6.  But 
here  there  is  no  reference  to  such  formation,  unless  it  is 
contained  in  this  brief  language.  We  have  the  strongest 
reasons  for  believing  that  it  is  so  contained,  and  that  the 
peculiarity  of  expression  in  this  case  gave  rise  to  the 
fuller  mention  in  the  passages  quoted.  It  is  implied  in 
the  verb  hi^-nn,  which,  although  of  the  Niphal,  or  passive 
form,  has  a  reflex  active  meaning,  like  the  Greek  cpaivs(f&ai, 
or  ava(palvs(f&ai,  to  appear,  to  shoiv  itself,  to  come  into  sight. 
As  in  that  beautiful  passage  in  Homer,  where  the  island 
Phasacia  is  described  by  this  word  as  looming,  or  rising 
up  to  the  vision  of  the  shipwrecked  Ulysses. 

'OxTwxaK^sxa-rr)  'E<i>ANH  oPSa.  tfxjoSvTa. 

Odyss.  V.  279,  x.  29. 

*'  On  the  eighteenth  day  there  rose  in  sight  the 
shadowy  mountains."  How  strongly,  too,  does  it  call  to 
mind  the  language  of  Ovid,  Metam.  Lib.  I,  343. 

Jam  mare  litus  habet :  plenos  capit  alveus  amnes  ; 
Flumina  subsidunt :  colles  exire  videntub  ; 
SiiVigit  humus  :  crescunt  loca  decrescentibus  undis. 

"  Now  the  sea  has  a  shore  ;  the  floods  subside  ;  the  hills 
appear  out  of  the  waters  (or  seem  to  mount  out  of  the 
waters)  ;  the  ground  rises ;  the  (earthy)  spaces  grow  as 
the  waters  decrease."  According  to  this  understanding 
of  the  words,  the  real  action  would  be  expressed  by  the 


THE   DIVISION   OF   LAND   AND   WATER.  125 

latter  verb,  and  the  latter  clause  of  the  verse.  What 
at  first  seems  a  poetical  representation,  is  found,  when 
closely  looked  at,  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  most  pro- 
bable view  of  the  real  facts  in  the  case.  The  real  ener- 
gizing power  was  in  the  earth,  upheaving  in  some  places, 
and  settling  down  in  others.  The  drawing  off  the 
waters  was  the  effect.  In  this  way  they  are  gathered 
togetlier  into  one  immense  place,  instead  of  being  diffused 
over  all  the  earth,  or  under  the  whole  heaven.  And 
now  the  dry  land  affeavB.  Compare  Job,  xxxviii,  8, 
11,  where  the  picture  of  confinmg,  and  setting  bounds 
to,  the  waters  corresponds  in  a  striking  manner  to  this 
coneeption. 

This  is  the  way  in  which  "  the  mountains  ivere  horn^'^* 
to  use  the  very  language  that  Moses  himself  employs  in 
the  old  90th  Psalm.  They  were  generated  in  the  deep 
abyss ;  they  were  "  curiously  fashioned  in  the  lower 
parts  of  the  earth ;"  like  the  foetal  embryo  they  grew 
beneath  the  dark  waters,  ever  swelling  and  expanding 
until  the  period  was  consummated,  and  the  natal  morn 
had  come,  when  they  burst  from  the  enclosing  womb  and 
rose  to  their  birth  among  the  things  "  that  are  seen"  or 
^'  do  appear."  The  conception  remains  in  the  later 
Hebrew  writings, — "  I  went  down  to  the  lottom%  of  the 
mmintains  ;  earth  with  its  bars  was  round  about  me," 
Jonah,  ii,  T.  The  Vulgate  has  for  the  rare  Hebrew 
word  in  this  place,  "  extrema  montium  ;^^  the  Syriac  ren- 
ders it  the  "  depths  of  the  mountains."  These  towering 
eminences  are  imaged  as  having  ther  roots  deep  down 

*  The  exegesis  of  the  Hebrew  word  here  employed  is  fully 
given  in  another  place. 

ir 


126  WOKE    OF   THE   THIRD   DAf. 

in  the  sea,  and  as  thus  yet  resting  in  the  lap  of  their 
ancient  mother. 

The  strongest  confirmation  of  our  exegetical  view  is  to 
be  derived  from  Psalms,  civ,  6,- — "  With  the  deep  thou 
didst  cover  it  as  with  a  garment ;  over  the  mountains 
(that  is  where  the  mountains  now  are  seen)  stood  the 
waters;  at  thy  rebuke  they  fled,  at  the  voice  of  thy 
thunder  they  started."  And  then  follows  this  remark- 
able language — we  make  the  English  an  exact  imitation 
of  the  Hebrew  and  the  Hebrew  construction — "  Go  up 
the  mountains,  go  down  the  valleys  unto  the  place  thou 
hast  estabhshed  for  them."  These  verses  have  been 
referred  to  the  flood,  but  against  such  a  supposition  there 
are  very  strong  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  the  older 
commentators,  and  some  of  the  best  among  the  modern, 
have  regarded  them  as  descriptive  of  creation,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  work  of  this  third  day.  Another  argument 
is  that  the  preceding  verses  refer  to  the  creation  beyond 
all  doubt;  and  in  the  third  place,  if  we  would  understand 
it  of  the  flood,  there  is  a  difficulty  arising  out  of  the  very 
construction  of  the  Hebrew  words.  Our  translation 
makes  waters  the  subject  of  the  verbs,  but  to  do  so  with- 
out any  preposition  following  would  present  a  construc- 
tion unexampled  in  the  Hebrew  language ;  whereas  the 
other  sense  flows  directly  and  in  the  easiest  manner  from 
the  words  as  they  stand,  tss^nn  iVy%  "The  mountains 
go  up,  the  valleys  go  down.''  With  this  correspond  the 
ancient  Versions.  The  Syriac  stands  precisely  like  the 
Hebrew  ;  the  Vulgate  renders  it — Aseendunt  monies, 
descendimt  eampi.  Luther  gives  it  to  us  most  graphi- 
cally— Die  Berge  gehen  hoch  hervor,  und  die  Breiten 
setzen  sich  herunter. 


THE  DIVISION  OP  LAND   AND  WATER.  127 

The  whole  aspect  of  these  passages,  taken  in  connec- 
tion with  the  brief  account  in  Genesis,  gives  strongly  the 
impression  that  the  place  for  the  gathering  and  abiding 
of  the  waters  was  made  by  this  upheaving  action  in  the 
earth,  the  very  action,  if  we  say  nothing  now  of  duration, 
to  which  the  geologist  ascribes  the  growth  and  form  of 
islands  and  continents. 

"  And  let  the  dry  land  appear."  The  word  ntya:,  it 
is  true,  is  often  used  of  land,  as  sohd  land  in  distinction 
from  water,  like  the  Greek  fii^o'v ;  but  the  whole  connec- 
tion of  the  thought  goes  to  bring  out  the  primary  sense 
and  make  it  a  prominent  feature  in  the  pictured  process. 
This  primary  sense  of  the  word  always  impKes  an  actual 
drying  from  a  previous  state  of  humidity — exaruit — 
aridus  f actus  est.  Thus,  in  Job,  xiv,  2, — "  The  waters 
fail,  the  rivers  are  dried  up."  It  brings  vividly  before 
the  mind  the  image  of  wet,  marshy  land,  such  as  would 
be  left  on  the  first  emerging  from  the  ocean,  and  which 
goes  through  a  process  of  drying  and  hardening,  the 
duration  of  which,  whether  longer  or  shorter,  is  to  be 
inferred  from  the  nature  of  the  action,  unless  there  is 
something  in  the  account  which  positively  forbids  the 
application  of  such  a  rule  of  judging.  But  here  is  a 
series  of  events  whose  continuance,  if  not  their  beginning, 
has  every  appearance  of  a  natural  process,  that  is,  a  pro- 
cess in  which  one  event  is  linked  with  and  comes  out  of 
another.  The  language  would  seem  intended  to  convey 
that  idea.  Although  presented  in  the  briefest  terms, 
the  great  facts  follow  each  other  in  just  that  regular 
order  which  would  be  the  result  of  present  established 
laws.  The  first  energy,  indeed,  is  supernatural ;  but  as 
soon  as  the  before  quiescent  earth  begins  to  hear  the 


128  WORK   OP  THE  THIRD  DAY. 

new  creative  voice,  it  feels  the  upheaving  force ;  the 
mountains  swell ;  the  plains  sink  down ;  the  waters  are 
displaced.  They  flow  into  the  subsiding  region;  the 
land,  with  all  its  divisions  of  hill  and  valley,  begins  to 
appear ;  evaporation  commences ;  a  drying  and  solidify- 
ing process  goes  on,  and  is  carried  through  its  neces- 
sary stages  and  degrees  until  fully  completed,  and  the 
new  state  of  the  earth  is  fully  brought  out.  The  result 
is,  that  what  was  before  a  wild  waste  of  shoreless  waters, 
is  now  a  world  of  continents,  seas  and  islands,  with  its 
dry  land  prepared  for  the  abode  of  hfe,  and  clothed  with 
a  luxuriant  vegetation.  The  great  steps  are  supplied  by 
the  account  and  its  necessary  implications ;  something 
which  has  the  appearance  of  causation  is  revealed ;  can 
we  resist  the .  feehng  that  the  numerous  intermediate 
lesser  links  which  are  required  to  complete  the  idea  of 
such  causation  are  not  also  implied  ? 

To  give  the  idea  more  clearly,  we  may  indulge  in 
three  suppositions,  one  of  which  alone  can  be  true. 

1st.  The  whole  work  took  place  instantaneously  in 
some  moment  of  the  day  allotted  to  it.     Or, 

2d.  It  was  a  process  —  a  process  of  cause  and  effect, 
and  therefore  entitled  to  be  called  natural,  (although 
having  a  supernatural  beginning,)  yet  such  that  with  all 
its  antecedents  and  consequents,  its  great  changes,  and 
its  lesser  intermediate  links,  it  all  took  place  within  the 
time  of  twenty-four  hours,  or  of  a  portion  of  twenty-four 
hours  ;  since  a  part,  and  it  may  have  been,  much  the 
largest  part  of  this  creative  day  was  occupied  with  the 
production  of  vegetable  existences  from  the  earth  after 
it  had  become  dry.     Or, 


THE  DIVISION   OF  LAND  AND   WATER.  129 

Sillj.  It  was  a  natural  process  supematurally  com- 
menced, and  yet,  as  a  natural  process,  occupymg  such 
duration  as  all  the  sequences  of  cause  and  effect  therein 
implied  would  naturally  suggest  to  the  mind,  and  which 
would  be  demanded  for  their  harmonious  succession  and 
co-ordination  on  the  supposition  that  the  leading  proper- 
ties of  matter,  of  earth,  and  fluids,  their  gravities,  their 
resistances,  their  laws  of  cohesion,  of  pressure,  of  motion, 
were  about  the  same  with,  or  in  any  way  analogous  to 
what  they  are  now, — that  is,  as  they  appear  to  the 
common  mind  judging  from  common  experience,  and 
according  to  the  impression  that  would  be  naturally  made 
by  what  seems,  on  the  face  of  it,  to  be  the  common  lan- 
guage of  causation. 

In  respect  to  the  first  of  these  suppositions,  it  may  be 
said  that  there  is  in  it  no  a  priori  incredibleness.  God 
might  have  made  things  so,  had  he  seen  fit,  and,  for  all 
that  we  can  know,  such  instantaneous  action  without 
media  would  have  been  worthy  of  him.  To  our  concep- 
tion, it  might  have  seemed  more  sublime  than  any  other 
mode.  In  a  moment,  from  a  boundless  waste  of  waters, 
there  is  a  transition  such  as  might  have  come  from  going 
through  all  these  changes  and  all  these  apparent  grades 
of  causation.  In  a  moment,  the  shoreless  abyss  might 
have  been  converted  into  an  earth  with  its  continents  and 
islands,  all  dry  without  having  gone  through  any  drying 
process,  all  finished,  all  with  their  permanent  form,  all 
clothed  instantaneously  with  an  immensely  varied  and 
luxuriant  vegetation.  This  might  have  been ;  but  the 
objection  comes  from  the  very  face  of  the  account.  The 
language  forbids  this  first  supposition.  There  is  evi- 
dently conveyed  by  it  the  thought  of  a  process  of  some 


130  WORK   OF   THE   THIRD   DAY. 

kind,  longer  or  shorter.  There  is  that  which  looks  like 
a  causation,  a  train  of  sequences, —  or,  in  other  words, 
an  energizing  of  natural  powers  producing  natural 
results. 

Was  this  all  crowded  into  the  space  of  a  few  hours  ? 
If  so,  the  very  supposition  destroys  itself.  We  have 
every  reason  to  believe  that  the  earth  and  water,  as  they 
existed  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  day,  possessed,  in 
the  main,  the  natural  properties  which  they  now  possess, 
the  same  or  a  similar  gravity,  the  same  density,  the 
same  resistance,  the  same  laws  of  fluidity,  of  pressure,  of 
repulsion ;  and  that  the  same  or  similar  effects  would  have 
followed  from  their  action  upon  each  other,  according  as 
that  action  was  slower  or  more  rapid,  that  is,  took  place 
in  a  longer  or  shorter  time.  And  so,  also,  in  respect  to 
the  processes  of  evaporation  and  aridification  ;  they  must 
have  had  some  analogy  at  least  to  the  same  processes 
as  they  now  take  place.  This  is  only  saying,  that  if 
there  is  a  nature,  there  must  be  a  harmony,  a  consis- 
tency in  it.  Other\Yise,  it  is  only  a  phantom,  an  appear- 
ance of  a  nature,  when  it  is  all  really  supernatural,  an 
appearance  of  causal  sequences  when  there  is  really  no 
dependence,  no  coherence.  They  are  all  separate  links  ; 
and  the  appearance  of  connection  is  only  deceptive.  Such 
an  apparent  process  of  moving  waters  could  not  have 
taken  place  throughout  all  the  wide  earth  and  ocean, 
within  the  time  of  a  few  hours,  without  utterly  deranging 
all  such  causal  dependence,  even  if  we  suppose  the  laws 
of  nature  to  have  been  much  more  rapid  in  their  action 
than  they  have  been  since  ;  of  which,  however,  there  is 
no  intimation  in  the  account.  It  would,  in  fact,  be 
wholly  supernatural,  in  the  sequences,  as  well  as  in  the 


THE  DIVISION   OF  LAND  AND   WATER.  131 

beginning  ;  as  truly  supernatural  as  in  the  first  supposi- 
tion, but  yet  with  this  fallacious  appearance  of  causation. 

The  objection  does  not  lie  at  all  against  the  first  hypo- 
thesis ;  for  there  God  is  supposed  to  have  suspended  the 
previous  laws  of  nature,  or  previous  properties  he  had 
given  to  things.  They  are  held  back  from  coming  in  col- 
lision with  each  other  while  He  performs  His  supernatu- 
ral work,  and  makes  the  wonderous  transition  without 
going  through  any  of  the  stages  which  would  seem  to  lie 
between.  The  world  is  now  in  this  state,  and  then  im- 
mediately  in  that,  although  the  distance  which  separates 
the  two  is  one  which  it  would  take  nature,  or  any  system 
of  connected  sequences,  ages  to  travel.  In  such  a  case, 
God  is  supposed  to  hold  nature  in  abeyance.  If  he  does 
not  destroy  her,  he  casts  her,  for  a  season,  into  a  deep 
sleep,  as  He  did  to  Adam  when  He  brought  out  of  him 
a  new  and  supernatural  human  creation.  Thus,  too,  in  this 
mighty  work  of  the  third  day,  if  such  an  immense  motion 
and  commotion  of  the  waters  took  place  over  all  the 
earth  in  a  few  hours,  their  gravity,  their  resistance,  their 
very  inertia,  must  all  have  been  changed,  or  held  in  sus- 
pense, to  prevent  that  utter  ruin  which  must  otherwise 
have  been  the  inevitable  result. 

But  on  the  other  supposition  there  could  have  been,  m 
reality,  no  causation,  no  real  sequences,  nor  linked  series 
of  effects  coming  out  of  antecedent  causes,  in  any  part 
of  the  seeming  process.  The  rising  land,  the  retiring 
waters,  the  appearing,  the  drying,  the  vegetable  growth, 
had  no  real  connection  with  each  other  ;  there  was  no 
real  nature  (puVij,  growth^  genesis,  or  physical  transition 
from  one  thing  to  another,  or  from  one  state  to  another. 
And  yet  the  language  does  give  us  some  such  impres- 


132  WORK  OF  THE  THIRD  DAY. 

sion  of  causality  and  causal  sequence,  whether  we  call  il 
nature,  or  give  it  any  other  name. 

The  third  hypothesis  remains ;  and  in  respect  to  this 
the  question  arises  —  Shall  we  measure  the  sequence  of 
events  by  a  rapidity  of  duration  which  would  surely 
falsify  them,  if  judged  by  those  common  ideas  of  causa- 
tion the  language  would  most  naturally  suggest,  or  shall 
we  interpret  the  time  in  some  conceived  and  conceivable 
analogy  with  the  processes  that  would  be  in  our  minds 
if  we  did  not  suppose  ourselves  limited  by  the  supposed 
measure  of  twenty-four  hours  ?  In  other  words,  shall  we 
estimate  the  day  by  the  work,  or  judge  of  the  work  solely 
by  a  preconceived  reckoning  of  the  day  ? 

We  content  ourselves  here  with  making  the  statement 
and  presenting  the  difficulty  which  attends  every  hypo- 
thesis but  the  third.  The  first  may  be  called  the  wholly 
supernatural ;  the  third  may  be  described  as  the  natural 
originated  by  the  supernatural,  and  then  following  estab- 
lished laws  in  their  established  order.  The  second  would 
be  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  It  would  have  the 
appearance  of  a  causation  which  is  not  a  causation, — of 
a  miraculous  agency  which  is  at  the  same  time  described 
in  language  adapted  to  a  natural  process.  It  is  thus  as 
much  at  war  with  the  true  and  only  idea  of  a  miracle,  as 
it  is  with  the  laws  of  our  thinking  about  nature.  But  a 
more  careful  proof  of  this  will  find  a  better  place  in  a  sub- 
sequent chapter.  The  same  question  comes  up  in  the 
description  of  the  work  of  the  fifth  day,  where  the  lan- 
guage of  causation  is  still  more  prominent,  and  the  idea 
of  natural  production  out  of  the  earth  is  still  more 
strongly  forced  upon  the  mind. 


CHAPTER  XIT. 


WORK   OF   THE   FOURTH   DAY. 
THE   HEAVENLY   BODIES. 

CREATION  OF  THE  SU.V  AND  MOON. — ThEIU  APPEABANCE. — ThEIR  APPOINTMENT 
IN  THE  HEAVENS. — OBJECTIONS. — THEORIES.— NOT  INCREDIBLE  THAT  THEIR 
ADJUSTMENT  SHOULD  HAVE  BEEN  LATER  THAN  THAT  OF  THE  EARTH. — BULK 
NO  MEASURE   OF  RANK. — OUR  UTTER  IGNORANCE  OF  WHAT  IS  BECOMING  IN  THE 

DIVINE  WORK.— What  is  the  making  op   a  thing  ?— The   wobk   of   thr 

FOURTH  DAY  AN  ARRANGEMENT. — NARROWNESS    OF  SCIENCE.— INTERPRETATION 

OF  THE  Hebrew  words. 

The  earth  at  this  stage  is  preparing  to  become  the  sup- 
porter of  vegetable  organizations,  and  the  abode  of  ani- 
mal and  rational  life.  But  for  the  perfect  development 
of  these,  if  not  for  their  origination,  there  is  needed 
the  orderly  arrangement  of  seasons,  and  the  regularly 
adjusted  light  and  heat  of  some  great  luminary,— 
in  other  words,  an  apparatus  by  which  there  might  be 
brought  out  those  shorter  subordinate  cycles  of  activity 
and  repose,  of  production  and  reproduction,  through 
which  nature  would  be  aided  in  consummating  the  work 
of  succeeding  periods.  For  vegetable  life  alone  they 
might  not  be  necessary,  especially  in  its  earUer  stages, 
but  for  the  animal  and  the  human  they  became  absolutely 
indispensable.  Even  for  the  rational  they  furnish  an  aid 
which  in  our  present  state  of  being  becomes  of  the  highest 
importance.  Their  vicissitudes  are  required  for  the  reg- 
ularity of  the  physical  growth ;  their  harmonious  divisions 

12 


134  WORK   OF  THE   FOURTH  DAY. 

of  times  are  to  exert  a  deeply  modifying  influence  upon 
the  laws  of  thinking  and  upon  the  mental  development. 
The  creation  of  such  seasons  was  to  be  the  work  of  the 
fourth  period  immediately  after,  if  not  simultaneous  with 
the  first  birth  of  vegetation,  and  before  the  production 
of  the  reptiles,  the  earthly  animals,  and  man. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  light  and  heat  had  been 
in  being  long  before,  and  had  been  acting  with  a  contin- 
uous energy ;  but  seasons,  that  is  regulated  suspensions 
and  varieties  of  Hght  and  heat,  such  as  are  required  for 
the  higher  cycles  of  organic  life,  had  as  yet  no  existence. 
Previous  to  this  the  earth  may  have  been  often  blazing 
with  a  phosphorescent  splendor,  or  shrouded  in  stygian 
darkness ;  but  those  were  not  regular  vicissitudes. 
They  were  not  the  long  ante-solar  cycles  running  through 
the  appointed  round  of  their  own  cyclical  law ;  nor  were 
they  the  measured  days  of  the  celestial  luminaries.  The 
period  has  now  arrived  in  which  the  latter  must  be  lit  up, 
and  make  their  appearance  in  the  firmament.  Whoever 
will  carefully  study  the  passage  must  perceive  this  at 
least,  that  not  the  absolute  creation  of  light  or  luminous 
worlds,  but  the  regulation  of  seasons,  the  year,  the 
month,  the  now  regularly  returning  day  and  night,  were 
the  designed  results  to  be  brought  about;  and  it  is  a 
clear  view  of  this  design  that  must  control  all  our  inter- 
pretations of  the  language  in  which  the  corresponding 
phenomena  are  set  forth.  The  elements*  or  bodies  for 
this  time-measuring,  season-producing,  apparatus,  had 
existed  long  before,  just  as  the  earth  had  been  in  being 

*Thus,  in  2  Peter,  iii,  10,  the  word  droi-xfia  is  used  to 
denote  the  elements  of  nature,  or  the  component  parts  of  the 
physical  world. 


THE   HEAVENLY   BODIES.  135 

for  ages,  but  this  was  the  period  for  bringing  that  appa- 
ratus into  manifest  exercise,  and  these  verses  set  forth 
the  gresitfact  through  the  same  kind  of  language  that  is 
employed  in  the  other  cases.  The  unknown,  unmeasured 
series  of  space-creations  which  may  have  taken  immense 
times  for  their  full  accomplishment  are  denoted  bj  the 
outward  and  ultimate  results.  The  dynamical  is  repre- 
sented by  the  oijtieal^  the  things  unseen  by  the  ^'  things 
that  do  appear. '^^ 

And  God  said — "Let  there  be  lights  (rih-iN^,  (pwtfT^^s^, 
fiant  luminaria,')  in  the  firmament,  to  divide  between  the 
day  and  the  night ;  and  let  them  be  for  signs,  and  for 
seasons,  and  for  days,  and  for  years.  The  word  here  is 
not  the  same  as  that  for  the  element  light,  although  from 
the  same  root.  It  more  properly  signifies  luminaries^  or 
light-giving  bodies.  The  Septuagint  presents  this  view 
of  the  word  in  the  Greek  9wfl'T^^sj,  and  Luther  in  his 
lichter.  "And  let  them  be  for  lights  in  the  firmament 
of  heaven  to  give  light  upon  the  earth ;  and  it  was  so. 
And  God  made  the  two  great  lights,  the  greater  light  to 
rule  the  day,  and  the  lesser  light  to  rule  the  night. 
And  God  so  arranged  them  in  the  firmament  of  heaven 
to  give  light  upon  the  earth,  and  to  divide  between  the 
light  and  the  darkness." 

In  this  passage  there  is,  perhaps,  the  greatest  difficulty 
in  the  whole  Mosaic  account.  The  writer  would  not 
seek  to  disguise  it  from  himself  or  his  readers.  It  is  a 
difficulty,  however,  which  must  grow  out  of  every  attempt 
to  conjecture  by  what  process  the  phenomenal  result  is 
brought  about.  As  far  as  regards  the  appearance  itself, 
or  the  statement  by  which  it  is  set  forth,  the  interpreta- 
tion is  of  the  simplest  and  ea&iest  kind.     But  have  we 


136  WORK   OF  THE   FOURTH  DAY. 

really  anything  to  do  with  such  process,  or  with  any  sub- 
stances or  causes  that  might  have  existed,  or  might  not 
have  existed,  anterior  to  the  phenomenal  arrangement  ? 
Did  the  matter  of  the  sun  have  a  being  before  the  fourth 
period  ?  Was  it  covered  with  some  obstructing  vail  which 
prevented  its  shining  upon  the  earth?  Had  it  yet 
become  luminous  ?  Were  there  obstacles  in  the  earth,  or 
the  earth's  atmosphere  to  the  reception  of  its  light  ?  Had 
our  planet  been  yet  connected  with  the  solar  system,  or 
commenced  its  revolution  upon  its  axis  ?  We  cannot 
answer  any  of  these  questions,  either  in  the  affirmative 
or  the  negative.  We  cannot  affirm  the  irrationality,  or 
deny  the  rationaHty  of  any  theory  grounded  upon  any 
one  of  them.  Science  is  dumb,  and  revelation  says 
nothing  about  it;  while  reason  admits  any  hypothesis 
that  does  not  contradict  our  ideas  of  the  divine  perfec- 
tions. Creation  in. six  solar  days,  or  six  millenial  ages, 
—  creation  by  direct  exercise  of  the  di\dne  energy,  or 
hj  development  through  nature,  or  by  a  blending  of 
both, —  creation  instantaneous  or  gradual,  continuous  or 
per  saltum, —  are  all,  in  themselves,  alike  rational,  alike 
consistent  with  piety,  or  -^ath  any  view  we  may  entertain 
of  the  manner  in  which  God  may  see  fit  to  manifest  His 
glory  to  an  intelligent  universe. 

It  may  be  thought,  however,  with  some  reason,  that 
the  greatest  difficulties  he  in  the  way  of  that  hypothesis 
which  would  make  the  very  origination  of  the  very  mat- 
ter of  the  heavenly  bodies  cotemporaneous  with  their 
manifestation  on  the  fourth  day.  There  are,  also,  puzz- 
ling obscurities  that  hang  round  the  opposite  view,  or 
the  one  which  is  here  maintained.  Still  none  of  these 
do  directly  touch  our  main  argument.     We  may  be  una- 


THE   HEAVENLY   BODIES.  137 

Me  to  clear  them  up ;  and  yet  the  leading  ideas  set  forth 
in  the  introductory  chapter  are  unaffected  and  unmodi- 
fied by  any  such  difficulties.  The  long  periods,  the  mix- 
ture of  the  supernatural  and  the  natural  in  every  creative 
work,  the  phenomenal  nature  of  the  language, — these 
are  the  great  outlines  we  have  attempted  to  trace  in  the 
Mosaic  account,  and  these  retain  the  same  force,  and 
the  same  position,  whatever  view  we  may  take  of  the 
process  through  which  were  brought  about  the  appear- 
ances of  the  fourth  day. 

The  more  carefully,  however,  the  account  is  examined, 
the  more  will  scientific  as  well  as  hermeneutical  difficul- 
ties vanish  away,  and  the  more  clearly  mil  be  seen  that 
on  which  we  have  so  much  insisted, —  the  fact  set  forth 
in  distinction  from  the  conception  through  which  the 
mind  receives  it. 

The  main  perplexity  arises  from  blending  a  false  view 
of  certain  words  with  some  of  the  conceptions  of  our 
modern  astronomy.  Thus  we  are  led  to  think  of  the 
sudden  creation  of  the  sun,  or  of  the  very  matter  of  the 
sun,  on  the  fourth  day.  This  body  we  have  been  taught 
to  regard  as  immensely  larger  than  the  earth,  and  hence 
the  apparent  absurdity.  Now  even  if  this  were  the 
right  interpretation,  that  the  sun  was  wholly  created  on 
the  foui'th  day,  st;il,  even  in  that  case,  the  objection 
would  be  far  from  unanswerable.  "We  might  be  ration- 
ally called  to  reconsider  such  an  opinion  of  relative 
importance,  as  being  a  narrow  prejudice  instead  of  the 
enlarged  view  which  some  might  fancy  it.  Is  it  not. 
Indeed,  a  narrow  view  to  regard  greater  and  less  simplj^ 
m  respect  to  bulk  ?     The  sun  may  in  this  vastly  exceed 


12* 


138  WORK   OF  THE   FOURTH  DA"^, 

the  earth,  and  yet  be  a  very  inferior  body,  of  vastly  less 
importance  in  the  scale  of  God's  works;  just  as  the 
huge  central  bulb  in  certain  machineries  may  be  far 
inferior  in  dignity  to  the  small  extremities  it  is  intended 
to  support  or  connect,  and  on  this  account,  may  without 
any  absurdity  be  regarded  as  of  inferior  and  posterior 
workmanship.  A  priori,  then,  there  is  nothing  irrational 
or  incredible  in  the  idea  that  the  orderly  constitution^ 
and  even  creation,  of  the  sun  should  have  been  later  than 
that  of  the  earth.  What  is  the  sun  but  a  huge  mass — - 
at  least  we  know  nothing  to  the  contrary — designed  to 
hold  the  planets  in  their  places,  and  to  be  their  deposi-- 
tory  of  light  and  heat  ?  It  is  huge,  just  because  bulk 
and  capacity  are  required  for  these  purposes,  but,  it  may 
be,  on  no  other  ground  of  superiority,  either  in  respect 
to  relative  rank  or  intrinsic  excellence. 

We  may  take  a  similar  view  of  the  relative  importance 
of  our  earth,  as  compared  with  the  other  bodies  of  the 
solar  system.  It  is  apparently  among  the  smallest,  but 
we  have  no  right  to  conclude  from  this  its  inferiority,  not 
^ven  its  physical  inferiority.  Such  a  conclusion  avouM 
be  as  unscientific  as  it  is  unphilosophical.  The  earth 
may  be  one  of  the  smallest,  because  the  more  condensed, 
and,  therefore,  the  more  fitted  for  a  world  of  habitation. 
The  huge  Jupiter,  with  his  250,000  miles  of  equatorial 
circumference,  may  be  but  a  wild  waste  of  waters,  such 
as  the  earth  was  on  the  first  day  of  creation,  when  it  may 
have  been  far  more  expanded  than  it  has  ever  been  since. 
Saturn,  astronomers  tell  us,  is  lighter  than  cork,  and 
may  be  not  much  more  dense  than  a  bladder  of  gas  ;  or 
even  if  composed  of  any  firmer  substance,  it  may  be  yet 


THE  HEAVENLY  BODIES.  139 

Without  a  moss,  or  an  animalcule,  or  the  lowest  rudiments 
of  a  shell  fish,  within  the  bounds  of  his  leviathan  bulk.* 

Should  any  one  hesitate  to  adopt  such  a  view  on  the 
ground  of  its  being  opposed  to  analogy,  or  that  it  would 
be  an  impeachment  of  the  divine  wisdom  and  goodness 
to  suppose  such  immense  spaces,  constituting  so  large  a 
part  of  our  solar  system,  to  be  as  yet  tohu  and  hohii  in 
respect  to  living  beings  or  even  the  lowest  forms  of  ani- 
mation, we  may  well  ask,  how  or  why  the  mystery  is  any 
greater  than  that  which  we  are  compelled  to  admit  in 
respect  to  our  earth.  ^  Our  apologist  for  the  Deity 
must  be  careful  how  he  undertakes  the  defence  of  Him 
^'  who  hath  no  counsellor"—"  who  doeth  according  to  his 
will,"  not  only  "  in  the  earth,"  but  also  "  among  the 
armies  of  heaven  above."  He  must  be  careful  how 
he  lauds  as  divine  wisdom  what  may  be  but  his  own 
short-sighted  ignorance  and  folly.  Why  are  there  such 
immense  wastes  on  our  own  planet  ?  Why  the  frozen 
regions  of  the  north  ?  Why  the  thousand-leagued  desert 
of  Sahara  ?  Why  are  four-fifths  of  our  earth  a  barren 
expanse  of  waters  ?  Why  are  the  organized  regions  of 
the  visible  universe  an  infinitessimal  portion  in  compari* 
■5on  with  what  may  yet  be  regarded  as  empty  space  ? 
Why  all  this  waste  ?  Why  are  there  not  ten  thousand 
more  worlds  than  there  are  ?  One  class  of  questions  is 
as  rational  as  the  other.  Uninhabited  planets,  uninha- 
bited systems,  unorganized  nebulge,  or  congeries  of  stars, 
occupying  spaces  which  our  highest  arithmetic  fails  to 

*  There  are  some  things  here  which  correspond,  both  in 
thought  and  expression,  with  a  late  remarkable  work  on 
"  The  Plurality  of  Worlds,"  but  they  were  written  sometime 
before  that  work  appeared. 


140  WORK   OF   THE   FOURTH   DAY. 

estimate,  are  no  mere  impeachments  of  divine  wisdom 
than  the  everlasting  snows  of  Siberia,  or  the  ever  barren 
sands  of  Africa, 

Our  conviction  of  the  divine  goodness  and  wisdom 
must  be  an  a  priori  idea,  confirmed,  it  may  be,  by  what 
we  see  in  nature,  but  often  held  in  opposition  to  the  very 
appearances  she  presents.  Not  that  simple  being  is 
therefore  wise  and  good  merely  because  it  is,  for  that 
would  be  only  a  logical  logomachy ;  but  the  ground  of 
our  thinking  is  the  converse  of  the  reason  of  God's  act- 
ing. He  hath  made  all  things  as  they  are,  because  thus 
to  make  them  was  wise  and  good ;  we  believe  that  they 
are  wise  and  good,  because  He  made  them  thus.  God 
has  not  left  us  to  that  poor  evidence  of  sense  whose  deci- 
sion, when  unsupported  by  this  higher  authority,  must 
ever  vary  according  to  the  small  number  of  facts,  out  of 
innumerable  facts  unknown,  on  which  it  founds  its  induc- 
tive verdict.  The  visible  universe  may  be  filled  with 
inhabited  suns  and  planets ;  or  there  may  be  few  that 
have  arrived,  or  are  even  destined  to  arrive,  at  that 
dignity.  Our  earth  may  be  a  pioneer  among  them,  not 
only  as  respects  the  other  planets  of  the  solar  system,  but 
also  the  vast  host  of  stellar  bodies.  We  know  nothing 
about  it,  and  have  the  most  scanty  data  for  any  reason- 
ing about  it.  Without  the  least  fear  of  the  imputation 
of  arrogance,  we  hesitate  not  to  say,  that  the  confident 
views  on  this  subject,  presented  in  such  books  as 
^^Nichol's  Architecture  of  the  Heavens,"  or  by  the 
great  mass  of  our  popular  scientific  lecturers,  are  alike 
baseless  in  their  premises  and  their  conslusions.  They 
are  simply  addressed  to  the  popular  wonder,  and,  in  this 
respect,  are  as  unscientific  as  they  are  unphilosophical. 


THE   HEAVENLY   BODIES.  141 

As  regards  the  question  we  are  now  discussing,  all  such 
speculations  are  utterly  worthless.  Millions,  and  billions, 
and  triUions,  add  nothing,  whatever,  to  the  argument. 
All  known  analogy  is  against  these  sweeping  inductions. 
A  planet,  a  sun,  a  system,  may  immensely  exceed  the 
earth  in  space,  and  even  in  mass,  while  yet  our  under- 
rated birth  place  may  be  as  much  above  them  in  moral, 
intellectual,  and  even  physical  dignity,  as  the  island  of 
Manhattan  surpasses  in  value  the  frozen  wastes  of  the 
whole  Antarctic  continent.  If,  then,  the  Scriptures  actu- 
ally and  unmistakably  taught  such  a  supposed  creation  of 
the  sun  on  the  fourth  day,  we  should  be  far  from  rejecting 
it  on  account  of  any  such  pretended  scientific  difficulty 
as  this  of  some  modern  astronomers. 

But,  in  fact,  they  teach  us  no  such  thing.  As  we 
have  seen,  the  Mosaic  account  does  not  set  forth  the 
absolute  creation  out  of  nothing,  even  of  the  earth.  The 
word  K-ia,  (he  created,')  refers  to  the  whole  subsequent 
work.  The  writer  seems  to  commence  with  the  earth  in 
its  rudimentary  state  ;  its  creation  is  a  long  process, 
consisting  in  the  dividing,  arranging,  disposing  of  exist- 
ing material,  and  attended,  from  time  to  time,  by  a 
superadded  energy  coming  from  a  supernatural  source. 
If  such  be  the  case  in  respect  to  the  earth,  can  we  rea- 
sonably suppose  that  there  would  be  here  so  sudden  a 
departure  from  the  fundamental  idea,  and  that  the 
"making"  when  predicated  of  the  celestial  bodies  must 
all  at  once  be  taken  as  an  instantaneous,  or  a  least,  a 
sudden,  w^ork  ?  We  may  fairly  judge,  then,  from  the 
analogy  of  the  account  itself,  that  the  sun,  and  other 
bodies  related  to  our  earth,  had  been  going  through  a 
similar  process.     They,  too,  presented  a  Q?-^'iig,  a  nature. 


142  WORK   OF   THE   FOURTH  DAY. 

a  growing  up  from  chaos ;  they,  too,  had  been  the  sub- 
jects of  successive  divisions  in  their  gradual  organiza- 
tion, brought  about,  perhaps,  by  a  like  sucession  of 
supernatural  interventions. 

But  what  do  we  mean  bv  a  makiyig  in  the  most  com- 
mon and  direct  use  of  language.  It  is  not  the  origina- 
tion of  the  material,  nor  the  preservation  of  the  material 
identity,  but  the  construction,  or  preparation  for  a  cer- 
tain use,  in  reference  to  which  the  thing  made  not  only 
has  its  name,  but  actually  is  what  it  is.  A  mass  of  dark 
matter,  or  of  unformed  matter,  floating  in  the  universe 
of  space,  is  not  a  sun,  or  the  sun,  although  it  is  that  from 
which  a  sun  may  be  made  or  constituted.  And  so  we 
may  say  of  every  production.  The  making  of  it  is  the 
making  it  to  he  that  which  it  is^  that  which  it  does,  and 
hence,  that  which  it  is  called  or  named ;  for  a  thing  can 
only  be  named  from  that  which  it  does,  or  is  made  to  he. 
It  is  not  made,  in  any  true  sense,  until  by  a  modification 
of  its  material,  or  some  outward  arrangement  of  its  mate- 
rial, it  is  put  in  relation  to  that  use,  or  made  to  manifest 
that  particular  action,  or  those  peculiar  phenomena,  from 
which  the  name  is  derived.  In  this  sense,  the  mahing 
and  the  naming  of  it  are  the  same  thing.  Nor  is  this 
a  forced  metaphysical  notion  out  of  the  common  range  of 
thought  or  speech.  We  would  appeal  to  every  reader's 
consciousness,  if  this  is  not  the  common  idea  of  the  word 
making.  It  is  the  other  notion, — namely,  of  the  origin- 
ation of  material  out  of  nothing,  that  is  metaphysical  and 
out  of  the  ordinary  use  of  language.  It  has  come  from 
a  supposed  logical  necessity  of  a  certain  theory,  and  been 
forcibly  connected  with  the  Mosaic  account,  because  it 


THE  HEAVENLY  BODIES.  143 

was  thought  to  be  demanded  bj  the  reason,  and  the  con- 
sequent exigencies  of  the  narrative. 

Adopt  either  theory,  however,  and  we  come  to  very 
much  the  same  conclusion.  Is  the  Mosaic  creation  a 
construction,  an  arrangement,  a  manifestation,  a  harmo- 
nizing, or  bringing  hato  relation,  of  pre-existent  materials, 
then,  as  far  as  interpretation  is  concerned,  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  origination,  or,  in  that  sense,  the 
making  of  the  sun  and  moon.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  truly  meant  to  be  set  forth  an  actual  creation 
out  of  nothmg,  as  is  maintained  in  the  opposing  hypo- 
thesis, then,  according  to  the  same  hypothesis,  and  the 
literal  interpretation  which  it  demands,  the  whole  creation 
of  material  took  place  in  or  at  the  period  called  the 
beginning  mentioned  in  the  first  verse,  and  before  the 
commencement  of  the  days.  And  so  we  come  round  to 
the  same  point  in  the  argument ;  for  in  this  view,  too,  all 
that  follows  is  but  the  arrangement,  separation,  connec- 
tion, and,  in  a  word,  disposition,  of  masses  already  origin- 
ated, and  which,  from  all  we  know  from  revelation,  or 
otherwise,  may  have  been  ages  in  existence. 

If,  then,  the  after  creation  of  the  earth  was  an  arrange- 
ment, or  disposition,  so,  also,  must  have  been  the  work 
of  the  fourth  day,  or  the  after  arrangement  of  the  long 
previously  originated  sun  and  moon.  "We  may  indulge 
in  an  endless  variety  of  suppositions  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  it  was  brought  about.  It  may  have  been  in  any 
of  the  ways  we  have  already  mentioned.  What  might, 
perhaps,  most  stumble  our  man  of  science,  would  be  the 
theory  which  assumes  that  at  this  period  there  was  estab- 
lished, or  begun  to  be  established,  the  present  existing 
relation  between  the  sun  and  earth ;  or  that  at  this  time 


144  WORK   OP  THE  FOURTH  DAY, 

the  revolution  of  the  earth  on  its  axis  was  adjusted,  if 
not  originated.  But  science  cannot  say  anything  for  or 
against  such  a  view.  It  might  be  objected,  too,  that  even 
if  we  suppose  the  matter  and  mass  of  the  sun  to  have  been 
created  long  before,  still  analogy  forbids  the  supposition 
that  so  important  a  development  and  arrangement  did  not 
take  place  until  this  comparatively  late  fourth  period. 
But  who  shall  determine  for  us  the  laws  or  grounds  of  such 
analogy?  It  all  belongs  to  that  class  of  questions  to 
which,  in  the  very  nature  of  things  and  ideas,  no  answer 
can  be  returned  except  the  one  furnished  by  Scripture  — - 
"  His  ways  are  not  as  our  ways.  His  thoughts  are  not  as 
our  thoughts."  Why  was  not  the  earth  and  the  universe 
brought  into  being  ages  before  it  was  ?  Why  has  it  not  long 
smce  been  finished,  or,  at  least,  carried  much  farther 
towards  its  highest  glory  and  consummation  ?  Surely, 
the  moral  world  is  of  as  much  importance  as  the  physi- 
cal ;  but  why,  then,  was  there  so  long  a  delay  before  the 
"Sun  of  Righteousness"  arose  upon  our  earth  "with 
healing  under  his  wings  ?"  Wliy  must  it  be  the  fourth 
millenium  before  Christ  could  be  born  ?  and  why  is  yet 
so  large  a  part  of  the  world  a  moral  chaos  on  whose  face 
the  darkness  still  rests,  and  to  which  no  vivifying  Word 
has  yet  gone  forth  ?  There  is  a  far  deeper  mystery  here 
than  is  suggested  by  any  real  or  supposed  arrangements 
of  the  solar  system. 

But  aside  from  any  considerations  of  this  kind,  and 
even  with  the  physical  world  alone  in  view,  how  unscien- 
tific, how  very  much  like  the  spirit  the  man  of  science 
himself  condemns,  but  which  is  so  excusable  in  the 
untaught,  to  carry  back  our  present  conceptions  of 
modern  days  and  years,  with  the  other  phenomena  the 


THE   HEAVENLY   BODIES.  145 

..sun  now  presents,  and  because  they  have  been  unvaried 
for  a  few  brief  generations  of  the  human  race,  to  fancy 
that  it  must  have  been  the  same  at  that  immensely 
remote  period  cotemporarj  with  the  first  beginning  of 
vegetable  life  upon  the  earth !  Would  not  all  fair  ana- 
logy suggest  the  thought,  that  the  astronomical  relations 
of  our  earth  were  as  unsettled,  as  remote  from  what  they 
were  afterwards  to  be,  as  the  then  terrestrial  arrange- 
ments ?  How  can  science  say  whether  there  was  then 
any  revolution  of  the  earth  upon  its  axis,  or  not,  or  how 
fast  or  slow  it  may  have  been, —  whether  the  revolving 
force  grew  out  of  the  slow  operation  of  natural  causes,  in 
which  case  it  must  have  had  a  regular  acceleration  from 
a  minimum,  that  is,  from  an  infinitesimal  to  a  maximum 
degree,  or  whether  it  came  from  a  sudden  impact  of  the 
Divine  hand  after  the  earth  had  acquired  sufficient  con- 
densation to  endure  the  centrifugal  tendency  of  the  new 
and  preternatural  impulse, — whether  there  was  any 
inclination  of  the  ecliptic  circle,  and  what  was  its  amount, 
—  whether  each  fluid  and  vapory  body  of  the  solar  sys- 
tem may  not,  as  a  consequence  of  its  then  rarified  state, 
have  been  self-luminous,  —  or  whether  the  rudimentary 
sun,  during  its  gradual  formation,  may  not  have  been 
either  opake  in  itself,  or  covered  with  a  dense  vail  such 
as  now  seems  to  form  its  second  or  interior  coating,  until 
all  things  were  adjusted  for  its  being  lighted  up  as  the 
central  luminary  of  the  system.  "  Knowest  thou  when 
God  disposed  them,  or  when  he  caused  the  light  from  his 
cloud  to  shine  ?" — Job,  xxxvii,  15.  The  passage  may 
refer  to  the  lightning,  but  it  is  capable  of  a  very  remark- 
able accommodation  to  the  great  event  which  we  are  now 
considering.     We  say  again, — science  knows  nothing 

13 


146  WORK   OF  THE   FOURTH  DAY. 

about  these  ancient  celestial  matters.  We  do  not  know . 
how,  or  when,  or  why,  they  built  the  pyramids,  or  by 
what  mechanism  they  piled  up  the  huge  rocks  in  Stone- 
henge.  We  may  be  safe  in  deciding  that  the  lower 
stones  were  placed  before  the  upper,  but  this  is  more 
than  we  know  when  we  get  off  the  earth,  and  into  remote 
times,  and  amid  a  very  different  state  of  things,  where 
the  very  questions  of  upper  and  lower,  and  prior  and 
posterior,  and  ends  and  means,  must  baffle  the  pursuit 
of  our  keenest  calculus. 

The  geologist  spurns  with  contempt  all  reasoning  from 
the  present  fixed  appearance  ©f  fiature  against  undoubted 
facts  which  go  to  show  great  and  sudden  convulsions  in 
former  ages.  If  this  be  true  of  the  earth,  why  not  of 
the  heavens  also  ?  If  it  be  true  of  the  earth  in  itself, 
why  not  also  of  its  relation  to  the  sun  ?  Since  the  beginning 
of  human  observation,  as  recorded  in  history,  sacred  and 
profane,  all  things  in  the  celestial  spaces  have  continued 
as  they  were,  or  nearly  so.  The  diurnal  and  annual 
revolutions  have  presented  no  perceptible  or  measurable 
variation.  Whatever  parallaxes  there  may  have  been 
among  the  fixed  stars  as  a  consequence  of  a  change  of 
our  position  in  the  great  visible  universe,  they  can  hardly 
be  determined  by  the  nicest  instruments.  The  same  old 
constellations  roll  over  our  heads,  in  the  same  order,  in 
the  same  relative  positions,  and  with  about  the  same 
degrees  of  apparent  brightness.  But  this  does  not 
oppose  the  idea  of  former  changes  in  the  sun  and  stars, 
as  well  as  in  our  immediate  planet.  To  measure  these 
remote  effects  by  our  now  regulated  times  would  be 
equally  absurd  in  both  cases.  Besides,  is  not  the  tele- 
scope now  revealing  something  of  the  same  anomalous 


THE   HEAVENLY   BODIES.  147 

Mnd  as  going  on  in  parts  of  the  universe  which  may  be 
supposed  to  be  as  distant  from  us  in  space  as  the  primae- 
val aspects  of  our  own  system  are  remote  from  us  in 
time  ?  In  some  quarters  of  the  heavens,  there  would 
seem  to  be  yet  transpiring  changes  analagous,  to  say  the 
least,  to  those  that  took  place  in  our  own  earth's  far-off 
infancy.  How  else  shall  we  account  for  the  strange 
appearances  presented  by  certain  nebulous  systems, 
whether  we  regard  them  as  fluid,  or  congeries  of  stars  ? 
Within  the  compass  of  a  few  months  or  days,  sometimes 
in  the  hours  of  an  evening,  sometimes  under  the  very  eye 
of  the  observer,  there  are  taking  place  —  at  least,  this  is 
the  appearance — variations  in  the  internal  condition  of 
immense  masses,  and  their  apparent  relations  to  each 
other,  such  as  in  our  fixed  system,  and  under  our  present 
unchanged  laws  of  nature,  would  take  millions  and  millions 
of  years  to  accomphsh. 

Adopting  certain  scientific  theories  as  the  ground  of  the 
fancy,  we  might  imagine  astronomers  who  lived  at  that  re- 
mote day,  in  some  other  remote  system  of  higher  progress, 
turning  their  glasses  towards  the  obscure  nebulous  cluster 
of  bodies  that  may  then  have  formed  our  condensing  solar 
system,  and  speculating  about  their  development.  But 
"  we  are  of  yesterday,"  and  know  nothing  about  it.  We 
are  just  as  ignorant,  at  the  best,  as  is  the  astronomer, 
even  yet,  and  with  all  the  help  of  Lord  Rosse's  telescope, 
in  respect  to  the  question  whether  the  light  of  a  nebula 
is  from  self-luminous  phosphorescent  parts,  or  whether  it 
all  comes  by  radiation  and  reflection  from  a  central  body. 

To  regume,  then,  our  main  argument  —  we  may  con- 
clude that  at  this  fourth  period,  partly  cotemporary  with 
yegetation,  and  before  the  earliest  dawn  of  animal  life, 


148  WORK   OF  THE   FOURTH  DAY. 

the  sun  assumed  toward  our  earth  the  state  and  form  of 
a  luminous  body,  and  the  adjustment  of  the  shorter 
periodic  seasons  commenced.  This  is  the  great  fact 
revealed,  and  revealed,  as  usual,  through  the  concep- 
tions that  Moses,  or  any  other  unscientific  man,  would 
connect  with  it.  All  that  we  can  say  is,  that  at  this 
period  the  solar  system  was  ht  up,  the  phosphorescent 
light  which  the  earth  may  have  possessed  went  out  as 
the  planet  became  more  dense,  the  vail  was  taken  from 
the  central  luminary,  in  order  that  now  there  might  be 
not  only  light  and  warmth,  which  existed  before,  but 
such-  regulated  diversities  of  them  as  would  be  required 
for  the  later  vegetable,  as  well  as  for  the  animal  and 
human  life. 

"  And  God  said.  Let  there  be  luminaries  (^fiant  lumi- 
naria.''')  "And  He  made  two  great  lights."  The 
Hebrew  verb  here  is  nsjy.  We  attach  little  or  no  im- 
portance to  any  argument  grounded  upon  any  metaphy- 
sical distinction  between  it  and  ^<'^a.  The  latter,  as  we 
have  seen,  has  no  such  metaphysical  sense,  and  the  other 
is  one  of  the  most  general  terms  in  the  Hebrew  language. 
Like  the  Latin  ago,  or  facio,  or  our  own  do,  or  make,  its 
precise  idea  ever  depends  on  the  context.  The  whole 
apparent  difficulty  is  cleared  up  by  looking  at  the  syntax 
— "  He  77iade  two  great  lights,  the  greater  light  to  rule 
the  day."  The  specifying  portion  thus  coming  in  makes 
the  careless  reader  lose  sight  of  the  connection,  und 
regard  the  verb  made  as  an  absolute  term  denoting  pre- 
sent fabrication.  But  of  the  true  syntax  the  Enghsh 
scholar  can  judge  as  well  as  the  most  learned  Hebraist. 
The  sense  of  made  is  limited  by  the  infinitive  that  fol- 
lows—  "He  made  them,  to  ride  the  day,"  etc.     "  Let 


I'HE   HEAVENLY   BODIES.  149 

tliere  be  lights^  lighters,  luminaries, ^^  said  God,  as  in  the 
remoter  period  He  said  "  Let  there  be  light,"  and  in  obe- 
dience to  the  same  voice  the  Hghts  appeared  in  the  firma- 
ment,—  the  sun  in  its  phenomenal  glory,  yf^tai  h  h'^radla.,^ 
&X^(iS  ou^avou  sv  o^aiian  Scj^ris,  as  it  IS  most  graphically  pre- 
sented by  the  Son  of  Sirach  — "  The  moon,  the  beanty 
of  Heaven,  the  glory  among  the  stars,  an  ornament  giving 
light  in  the  high  places  of  the  Lord,"  —  xdWog  ov^uvou, 
6o^a.  atfr^wv,  xoVfXog*  (pojTi^wv  sv  u-^iVtw^  xu^i'ou. — Ecclesiasti- 

cus,  xliii,  1-9.  "  And  he  made  one  to  rule  the  day,  and 
the  other  the  night ;  and  he  set  (or  displayed)  them  in 
the  firmament  so  as  to  give  light  upon  the  earth," 

Thus  would  we  infer  that  disposition,  or  ordination, 
and  not  creation,  is  the  true  idea.  It  appears  on  the 
face  of  the  account  itself,  and  is,  moreover,  abundantly 
confirmed  by  other  passages  of  Scripture.  Thus,  Job, 
xxxviii,  33, — "Knowest  thou  the  ordinances  of  heaven  ; 
-canst  thou  set  their  dominion  in  the  earth  ?"  Jeremiah, 
xxxi,  35, — "  Thus  saith  the  Lord  who  appointed  (ir!=) 
the  sun  for  light  by  day,  and  the  moon  by  night ;  if  these 
my  ordinances  (tra'^p.h,  o»  vo^xoi  ouro»,  leges  istae)  should 
depart,  then  should  Israel  cease  to  be  a  people  before 
me."  So,  also,  Psalms,  civ,  18,  which  should  be  ren- 
dered,— '•''He  appointed  the  moon  for  seasons,  the  sun 
knoweth  his  setting."  To  the  same  effect  the  passage  to 
which  we  have  already  referred  from  Ecclesiasticus,  or 
The  Wisdom  of  Sirach,  which,  although  apocryphal,  pre- 
sents most  clearly  and  beautifully  the  ancient  idea.    ''At 

*  Or  **  a  world  giving  light."  The  whole  passage  is  one 
•of  exceeding  beauty,  and  remarkable  for  so  distinctly  present- 
ing what  we  have  called  the  optical  or  phenomenal  aspect 
of  creation. 

13* 


150  WORK   OF  THE   FOURTH   DAY. 

the  command  of  the  Holy  One  they  stand  in  their  order, 
and  never  faint  in  their  Thatches,"™  Ecclesiasticus,  xUii, 
18.  "We  present  these  passages  from  the  Hebrew  poets, 
not  as  proof  of  the  fact,  or  the  truth  of  the  fact,  but  as.  evi- 
dence of  the  manner  in  which  they  conceived  it.  Their 
design  is  to  magnify  the  Lord,  and  had  an  absolute  crea- 
tion been  in  their  mind,  it  is  hard  to  explain  why  it 
should  not  have  been  strongly  set  forth,  instead  of  this 
other  idea  of  ordination,  or  phenomenal  arrangement, 
which  is  so  strikingly  presented  in  these  and  similar  allu- 
sions to  the  Mosaic  account  of  the  heavenly  bodies. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


SOLAR  DAY   AND    SOLAR   DIVISIONS   OP   TIME. 

TIME-MEASUREMENTS   AND    TIME-IDEAS. 

First  mention  of  the  solah  day.— Could  the  previous  days  have  been 

OF  THE  SAME  KIND.— QUESTION  RESUMED. — ThE  WORD  DAY.— ANALYSIS  OF 
the  essential  IDEA. — ItS  FOUR  CONSTITUENT  ELEMENTS. — WORDS  MORNING 
AND    EVENING  COMPARED  WITH    SPRING  AND    FALL. — REASONS    FOR  DWELLING 

ON    THIS. — The    true    conceptive    stand-point. — Must   carry  ourselves 

BACK  into  the  old  HEBREW  FEELING. — ThE  PERIODICAL  IDEA. — DIFFERENT 
KINDS  OF  ASTRONOMICAL    DAYS. — IDEA    OF    DURATION.— ThE    DAY    THE    UNIT. — 

Hours  derive  their  measure  from  it. — God's  estimate  of  time. — "A 

THOUSAND  YEARS  AS'ONE  DAY."— "HiS  THOUGHTS  ARE  NOT  AS  OUR  THOUGHTS." 

^^And  let  them  be  for  signs,  and  for  seasons,  and  for 
dai/s,  and  for  years."  These  certainly  were  natural 
days  in  the  common  usage  of  the  term, —  our  common 
days  of  twenty-four  hours.  Could  those  that  were  men- 
tioned before  as  marking  the  creative  periods,  have  been 
of  the  same  kind  and  the  same  duration  ?  This  brings 
up  the  old  question,  in  respect  to  which  we  would  again 
beg  our  readers'  indulgence.  We  have  already  dis- 
cussed it  at  some  length,  but  there  are  additional 
thoughts  which  could  come  in  nowhere  else  so  well  as 
here,  where  we  have  the  first  mention  of  solar  days.  It 
is  a  question  of  naturalness  of  interpretation.  Those  who 
hold  the  indefinite  periods  are  charged  with  taking  the 
word  out  of  its  natural  and  easy  sense.  The  use  of  the 
term  here,  it  is  said,  limits  its  sense  in  other  parts  of  the 
account.     Had  there  been  intended  a  different  sense,  or 


152    SOLAR  DAY  AND  SOLAR   DIVISIONS   OF  TIME. 

a  different  force,  some  intimation  would  have  been  given 
to  that  effect.  We  think  it  has  been  shown  that  such  an 
intimation  is  given  — -  that  the  strange  morning  and  eve- 
ning of  the  first  day,  the  necessary  indefiniteness  of  the 
first  night,  the  necessary  absence  of  those  phenomena 
which  mark  the  two  parts  of  our  solar  period,  and  the 
whole  strange  aspect  of  the  account  in  all  its  stages, 
suggest  the  thought  of  the  extraordinary,  the  anomalous, 
the  unmeasured,  and  the  immeasurable,  that  is,  as  far  as 
any  subsequently  ordained  dimensions  of  time  should  be 
applied  to  them.  Such  thoughts  must  have  been  in  the 
mind  of  the  medium  who  wrote  the  wondrous  narrative ; 
such  thoughts  he  must  have  known  would  naturally  pre- 
sent themselves  to  the  mind  of  the  reader,  should  he  feel 
himself  compelled  to  carry  the  conception  of  solar  days  of 
twenty-four  hours  into  his  interpretation  of  the  first  four 
periods.  The  intimation  was  enough,  and  was  deemed 
enough ;  and  thus  viewed,  the  express  mention  here  of 
sun-divided  days,  instead  of  being  an  argument  for  their 
identity,  is  strong  proof  that  the  previous  periods,  whose 
evenings  and  mornings  must  have  been  made  in  so  very 
different  a  manner,  must  also,  on  that  very  account,  have 
been  of  a  widely  different  character. 

What  do  we  mean  by  a  natural  day, — or  as  it  might 
better  be  called,  a  common  solar  day  ?  The  importance 
of  the  question  demands  a  close  analysis  of  the  idea. 
There  is  no  other  way  of  divesting  ourselves  of  concep- 
tions, which,  however  natural  they  may  seem  to  us  when 
entertained  from  one  stand  point,  may  appear  most 
unnatural  when  considered  from  another. 

In  the  idea  then  of  a  day,  in  its  most  general  sense, 
there  are  four  elementary  constituent  thoughts. 


i 


TIME-MEASUREMENTS   AND   TIME-IDEAS.  153 

1st.  Its  cyclical  or  periodical  nature ! 

2d.  This  periodicity  made  by  two  antithetical  states 
characterized  by  opposite  qualities,  of  "which  the  one 
kind  is  the  negation  of  the  other. 

3d.  Its  duration  in  time. 

4th.  The  mode  in  which  this  duration  is  marked,  and 
its  periodicity  determined. 

Of  these  the  first  and  second  are  not  only  essential, 
but  constant,  catholic,  and  immutable.  The  third  and 
fourth  are  variable  and  specific.  Without  its  periodi- 
city and  its  antithetical  division,  there  could  not  be  a 
day  at  all.  The  idea  would  be  wholly  lost.  No  mere 
division  of  continuous  time,  measured  merely  by  a  certain 
arbitrary  extent,  could  answer  to  the  notion,  or  be  enti- 
tled to  the  name.  On  the  other  hand,  the  third  and 
fourth  may  be  varied  to  almost  any  degree,  and  yet  the 
radical  idea  be  preserved.  The  duration  may  be  twenty- 
four  hours,  or  twenty-four  thousand  years.  The  mode 
.of  antithetical  division  may  be  by  risings  and  settings  of 
a  revolving  or  apparently  revolving  body  called  the  sun ; 
or  it  may  be  by  any  cyclical  law  in  nature  producing  two 
opposite  times  of  rest  and  action,  of  progress  and  repose, 
of  cold  and  warmth,  of  growth  and  decay ;  or  it  may  be 
by  any  other  mode  in  which  there  are  produced  two 
periods  of  direct  contrast,  making  up  by  their  alternation 
the  completed  cycle. 

Applied  then  to  a  common  solar  day  these  constituents 
of  the  idea  (the  two  constant  and  the  two  mutable) 
would  stand  thus. 

1st.  Its  cyclical  or  periodical  nature. 

2d.  Its  two  antithetical  seasons. 

3d.  A  specific  duration  of  twenty-four  hours. 


154      SOLAR  DAY  AND  SOLAE  DIVISIONS  OF  TIME. 

4th.  This  duration  and  antithetical  division  determined 
bj  the  phenomenal  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun. 

The  first  and  second,  or  the  essentially  immutable,  are 
as  before.  The  third  and  fourth  present  a  varied  and 
peculiar  character  belonging  specifically  to  what  we  call 
a  solar  day.  But  such,  says  the  objector,  are  the  days 
of  creation.  The  third  characteristic  is  not  only  essen- 
tial, but  as  essentially  immutable,  in  the  idea  as  the 
first.  Your  analysis,  he  might  say,  is  of  no  value, 
because  it  was  made  to  suit  a  particular  hypothesis  which 
assumes  fixedness  and  universality  in  the  first  two,  and 
mutability  in  the  third  and  fourth.  Twenty-four  hours, 
or  that  precise  extent  in  time,  is  as  essential  to  the  idea 
to  which  we  give  the  name  day  as  its  periodical  nature; 
being  thus  essential  and  indissolubly  associated  with  such 
name,  there  cannot  be  a  day  without  it.  Very  well. 
We  answer,  then,  —  Why  is  not  the  fourth,  or  the  pre- 
sent manner  of  making  and  marking  that  duration  by 
sun-risings  and  sun-settings,  equally  essential,  equally 
invariable,  equally  inseparable  ?  Which  inheres  most 
fixedly  in  the  idea  of  a  day — a  common  natural  day,  we 
mean — its  duration  of  24  hours,  or  its  divided  periods 
of  sunrise  and  sunset  ?  Do  we  not  truly  feel  that  it  is 
more  difiicult  to  sever  from  the  idea  the  thought  of  the 
latter  than  of  the  former  characteristic  ?  We  can  more 
easily  think  of  a  day  longer  than  24  hours,  than  of  one 
which  has  no  such  sun-made  antithetical  division.  Now, 
we  are  compelled  by  the  very  language  of  the  account 
to  make  this  severance  in  the  case  of  the  Mosaic  days, 
—  at  least  the  first  four  of  them.  They  were  certainly 
without  a  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun.  If  in  the 
absence  of  this  they  could  be  called  days,  then  —  a  for- 


TIME-MEASUREMENTS  AND  TIME-IDEAS.  155 

tioii— could  the  name  be  naturally  and  truly  applied  to 
those  that  varied  from  the  common  day  in  respect  to  the 
less  essential  element  of  a  twenty-four  hours'  duration. 
They  were  not,  then,  common  days ;  they  were  not  com- 
mon mornings  and  evenings ;  and  if  so,  what  difficulty, 
or  what  violation  of  language,  or  of  ideas,  or  of  the  fair 
laws  of  interpretation,  in  taking  the  other  step  and  affirm- 
ing that  they  were  uncommon  or  extraordinary,  in  their 
duration  ?  Much  more  easy,  too,  would  it  be  to  do  this, 
if  we  take  as  our  stand-point  those  early  times  when  the 
pictorial  conceptions,  etymologically  contained  in  the 
words  Q^^  -!)?>;  ^-^y,  and  which  are  so  easily  associated 
with  the  general  cyclical  idea,  may  be  supposed  to  have 
been  yet  fresh  in  the  thoughts.  Smce  they  have  faded 
away  or  become  obsolete,  the  conception  assumes  more 
of  an  abstract  or  mere  quantitative  character,  and  we 
become  rigid  in  the  notion  that  a  certain  duration  is  the 
most  essential,  and  thus  the  most  natural,  element  in  the 
idea.  When  the  Hebrew  terms  for  morning  and  eve- 
ning were  yet  as  freshly  metaphorical  as  our  words 
S2ning  and/aZ^,  and  contained  very  much  the  same  pic- 
torial conceptions  of  re viviscence  and  repose,  it  was  much 
more  easy  to  keep  up  the  association  of  ideas  on  which 
the  true  interpretation  so  much  depends. 

And  this  will  be  the  more  easily  seen  when  we  call  to 
mind  how  much  our  exegetical  ideas  are  affected  by  the 
associations  of  language ;  so  that  what  appears  forced, 
or  unnatural  in  one  aspect,  appears  most  easy  and  natural 
in  another.  Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  t=a'.% 
yom^  or  day^  occurs  most  frequently  in  this  unmeasured 
sense  of  age  or  period.  Now  had  it  been,  in  all  such 
cases,  invariably  rendered  age,  the  reader  of  our  English 


166      SOLAR  DAY  AND  SOLAR  DIVISIONS  OF  TIME. 

version  would  have  become  familiar  with  the  phrase,  and 
would  thus  have  been  prepared  for  the  notion  it  might 
be  regarded  as  conveying  in  the  first  of  Genesis.  If, 
for  example,  in  all  such  cases  as  that  of  Micah,  iv,  G,  v, 
9,  Isaiah,  xii,  1,  ii,  1,  Micah,  iv,  1,  vii,  12,  we  had  been 
accustomed  to  read :  '^  In  that  age,  saith  the  Lord,  I  will 
gather  in  the  outcasts,  and  the  Lord  himself  shall  reign 
over  them  in  Mount  Sion" — "  In  that  age  shall  ye  say 
I  will  praise  the  Lord,  for  he  has  become  our  salvation," 
— "  In  the  latter  ages  shall  the  mountain  of  the  Lord's 
house  be^  established  on  the  tops  of  the  mountains  and 
all  nations  shall  flow  unto  it," — "  In  that  age  there 
shall  come  unto  thee  from  Assyria,  and  from  Egypt, 
and  thy  dominion  shall  be  from  sea  to  sea  and  from 
mountain  to  mountain;" — or,  to  take  examples  still 
more  closely  resembling  the  case  we  have  in  view,  had 
we  always  read  in  Micah,  v,  1,  "  whose  outgoings  are 
from  the  ages  of  eternity,"  or  Psalms,  Ixxxix,  29,  "  His 
throne  shall  be  like  the  agQS  of  heaven,"— had  we  been 
accustomed  to  this,  we  say,  and  also  well  knew  that  in 
all  these  and  similar  passages  the  word  there  rendered, 
and  most  properly  rendered,  ages,  was  the  same  word 
which,  in  Genesis  and  elsewhere,  is  translated  days,  we 
might  have  been,  in  respect  to  this  idea,  in  the  same 
condition  with  the  early  Hebrew  mind  when  it  was 
famihar  with  both  applications  of  the  term,  and  received 
each  as  alike  natural,  alike  literal,  acknowledging  no 
more  of  metaphor  in  the  one  usage  than  in  the  other. 
We  might  have  even  felt  that  the  wider,  the  freer,  was 
the  more  primitive,  the  more  real  sense,  in  fact,  the 
original  idea  in  respect  to  which  all  the  lesser  applica- 
tions are  but  cycHcal  correspondences  on  a  reduced  scale. 


TIME-MEASUREMENTS  AND   TIME-IDEAS.  157 

Such,  we  may  say,  was  truly  the  condition  of  the  old 
Hebrew  writer,  and  the  old  Hebrew  reader.  The  whole 
aspect  of  the  passage,  as  it  presents  itself  in  the  original, 
might  have  come  up  to  his  mind  just  as  it  would  do  to 
us,  had  we  been  accustomed  to  the  translation  first  age^ 
seco7id  age,  etc.,  instead  of  the  one  which,  to  our  present 
association,  presents  the  narrower  sense. 

The  objection  to  this  from  the  mention  of  the  evening 
and  the  morning,  we  have  already  considered,  and  shown 
that  such  mention  strengthens  instead  of  w^eakening  the 
main  position.  It  may  be  remarked,  however,  that  the 
above  train  of  thought  is  equally  applicable  to  these 
terms.  There  are  many  passages  in  which  they,  too, 
are  employed  in  this  extended  sense.  It  is  the  case, 
tnoreover,  in  other  tongues  besides  the  Hebrew,  that  the 
evening  is  used  for  the  period  of  decline,  of  inactivity,  of 
repose,  the  morning  for  the  sudden  introduction  of  some- 
thing new,  of  something  higher  and  better.  As  we  have 
traced  these  words,  this  old  pictorial  sense,  which  is 
entirely  independent  of  any  ideas  of  duration,  is  even 
more  marked  in  their  etymologies  (as  shown  in  the  He- 
brew, the  Syriac  and  the  Samaritan)  than  in  the  primi- 
tive words  for  dag  and  night.  Again,  they  are  distinctly 
applied  to  other  portions  of  astronomical  time  of  greater 
extent  than  the  solar  diurnal  period.  There  is  the  morn- 
ing of  the  year.  The  spring  is  so  called  as  its  season  of 
awakening,  of  reviving,  just  as  winter  is  its  evening  or 
night  of  torpor  and  repose.  So,  also,  there  is  the  morn- 
ing of  life,  the  morning  of  a  nation's  history,  the  morning 
of  the  world,  and  of  the  human  race.  But  this,  it  may 
be  said,  is  poetical.  We  deny  it,  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  epithet  is  meant  to  be  employed.     These  words,  thua 

14 


158     SOLAR  DAY  AND   SOLAR  DIVISIONS   OF  TIME. 

used,  are  pictorial  as  all  language  is,  more  or  less,  but 
no  more  poetical  than  the  common  English  words  Spring 
and  Fall,  in  their  most  common  use  as  applied  to  differ- 
ent seasons  of  the  dying  and  reviving  year.*  It  is  all  a 
matter  of  use.  Had  we  been  as  much  accustomed  to 
a  similar  application  of  morning  and  evening,  there  would 
have  been  the  same  easy  harmony  in  the  association 
required,  and  we  would  have  been  the  more  easily  pre- 
pared to  feel  the  right  application  of  the  same  expressive 
terms  to  the  longer  antithetical  periods  of  rest  and 
awakening  that  constitute  the  Mosaic  yom^  or  age.  The 
Hebrews  ivere  accustomed  to  it,  and  we  may  feel  our- 
selves, therefore,  on  strong  ground,  when  it  is  maintained 
that  in  the  reading  of  Genesis,  the  larger  cyclical  ideas 
would  come  as  naturally  to  them  as  the  smaller  do  to  us. 
We  dwell  on  this  here,  as  we  have  done  elsewhere, 
because  every  thing  depends  upon  getting  the  true  con- 
ceptive  stand-point.  It  is  not  enough  to  show,  as  can 
easily  be  done,  that  the  Hebrew  may  have  this  indefinite 
sense,  or  that  the  word  day  possesses  it  in  other  parts  of 
the  Bible,  or  even  that  the  language  furnished  no  other 
term  of  time  that  would  so  well  represent  the  long  period. 
Something  more  is  wanted  to  the  argument,  if  we  would 
exhibit  the  true  ground  of  such  usage ;  and  therefore  in 
consideration  of  its  most  important  bearing  upon  the 
whole  ground  of  our  discussion,  we  ask  the  reader's 

*  The  imagery  is  beautifully  presented  in  the  etymology 
of  the  Hebrew  tptt),  the  almond  {amygdalus.')  It  is  so  called, 
says  Gescnius,  quia  omnium  arborum  prima  e  somno  hyherno 
evigilat  et  expergiscitur, — because  of  all  trees  it  first  awakes 
from  the  sleep  of  winter.  Hence  it  is  presented  to  the  Pro- 
phet in  vision  (Jeremiah,  i,  2,)  as  a  symbol  of  wakefulness 
and  faith. 


TIME-MEASUREMENTS   AXD   TIME-IDEAS.  159 

indulgent  patience  with  this  minute  analysis  of  ideas  and 
primary  conceptions.  The  object  is  to  show  that  such  a 
view  of  the  words  day^  morning  and  evening,  is  not  only 
a  possible  one,  or  one  out  of  many  possible  conjectures, 
but  that  in  the  peculiar  circumstances  and  aspects  of  this 
remarkable  description,  it  is  the  most  natural  and  easy, 
as  well  as  the  most  satisfactory  that  can  be  taken. 

But  let  us  define  more  carefully  another  term  which 
we  have  been  taking  in  its  most  general  and  indefinite 
sense,  ^j  period,  then,  we  mean  a  wheel  or  round  of 
events  completing  itself,  and  thus  measuring  itself  off, 
and  separating  itself  by  such  a  completed  course  from 
other  periods.  Our  solar  day  is  such  a  currus  or  course 
of  events  completing  itself  on  a  reduced  scale.  It  is  with 
us  the  first  and  simplest  cycle  in  nature,  and,  therefore, 
is  it  that  in  most  languages,  growing  as  they  do  out  of 
the  common  natural  logic  of  the  human  soul,  this  term  is 
so  easily  applied  to  any  such  round  or  naturally  connected 
series  of  events,  be  it  longer  or  smaller ;  and  that,  too, 
not  only  in  the  natural  world,  but  also  in  the  moral  and 
poUtical.  It  is  not  a  mere  simile,  or  a  merely  illustrative 
metaphor,  but  an  expanded  application  of  one  and  the 
same  radical  idea  to  a  different  scale.  This  periodicity, 
we  have  said,  is  the  first  and  immutable  element.  You 
cannot  take  it  away  without  destroying  the  idea.  Dura- 
tion, on  the  other  hand,  is  the  incidental,  or  rather  the 
mutable,  aspect.  It  may  vary  to  any  extent.  There 
are  different  days  in  the  different  planets  of  our  system, 
yet  aU  real  days.  Our  own  sidereal  day  is  shorter  than 
the  solar  day.  Even  our  solar  day  may  not  be  the  same 
now  as  in  the  earUest  times,  or  as  it  may  be  before  the 
completion  of  the  present  ajc^v  of  our  earth's  existence. 


160      SOLAR  DAY  AND   SOLAR  DIVISIONS   OP  TIME. 

The  day  of  Joshua  we  know  was  preternaturally  pro- 
longed. It  is  not  the  exact  length  even  of  our  common 
day,  (the  Bible  says  nothing  about  that,)  but  its  regular 
periodical  recurrence  which  is  secured  by  God's  cove- 
nant after  the  flood. 

Now,  does  it  not  seem  unnatural  and  forced  to  make 
the  incidental  or  changing  element  (incidental  at  least  in 
form  and  extent)  the  essential  one,  and  insist  upon  a 
certain  precisely  measured  duration  (especially  when 
the  Bible  is  utterly  silent  about  it)  as  the  controlling 
feature  in  the  use  of  the  word ;  as  though  it  could  not 
be  a  day  without  twenty- four  hours,  although  it  could 
very  easily  and  naturally  be  a  day  without  any  rising  or 
setting  of  the  sun,  and  so,  of  course,  without  anything 
like  our  common  morning  and  evening  ? 

Besides,  what  is  this  duration  ?  Day  is  an  absolute 
idea,  because  it  contains  its  law  and  measure  in  itself. 
But  divisions  otherwise  made  are  merely  relative.  Hours, 
minutes,  and  seconds,  have  no  meaning  except  as  certain 
divisions  or  fractions  of  an  absolute  or  self-determining 
period  called  a  day.  They  do  not  make  the  day,  but 
the  day  them  ;  they  do  not  measure  the  day,  but  the  day 
them.  They  derive  their  ratio  wholly  from  it.  The  day 
is  the  unit,  and  an  hour  is  the  twenty-fourth  part  of  the 
diurnal  cycle,  be  it  longer  or  shorter  in  respect  to  abso- 
lute duration.  To  estimate,  then,  the  horal  divisions  by 
themselves  as  absolute  times,  (which  must  always  be  done 
when  we  make  them  the  arbitrary  measures  of  antesolar 
periods,)  or  to  regard  the  day  as  equivalent  to  them,  or 
any  sum  of  them,  would  be  like  the  attempt  to  picture 
to  the   mind's  eye  yards,  feet,  and   inches,  in  empty 


TIME-MEASUREMENTS   AND   TIME-IDEAS.  161 

space.*  We  might  as  well  give  the  name  to  any  arbi- 
trary lengths  of  twenty-four  hours  into  which  a  clock 
might  divide  the  long  day  of  the  Arctic  regions.  There 
are  still  such  twenty-four  hour  periods  there,  as  made 
by  the  stars,  but  our  solar  diurnal  cycle  ceased  at  the 
Arctic  circle.  With  perfect  propriety,  therefore,  do  we 
speak  of  the  day  at  the  pole  as  being  a  twelvemonth  in 
its  whole  duration, —  six  months  in  one  state  and  six 
months  in  the  opposite,  thus  making  its  night  and  morn- 
ing. There  the  day  has  become  identical  with  the  year. 
And  yet  it  is  still  a  day.  We  feel  that  the  language  is 
literal  and  true,  and  not  merely  a  metaphorical  accom- 
modation. 

Again,  before  the  birth  of  the  rational  soul,  in  other 
words,  the  space-and-time-measuring  soul,  what  estimate 
— we  do  not  say  what  absolute  extent — but  what  esti- 
mate of  time  at  all  ?  .  What  estimate  of  it  in  any  of  its 
relations  to  our  earth,  as  they  could  be  perceived  and 
calculated  by  any  observing  intellect  ?  It  may,  perhaps, 
be  said  that  it  was  measured  in  the  mind  of  God.  True  ; 
but  let  us  remember  again  the  remarkable  qualification 
that  must  suggest  itself  whenever  that  idea  is  brought  in. 
*'  His  ways  are  not  as  our  ways ;  His  thoughts  are  not 
as  our  thoughts;   as  the  heavens  are  high  above  the 

*  The  same  thought  is  well  set  forth  by  Augustine  Contra 
Manichaeos,  Lib.  II,  Ch.  14, — "Quia  si  currant  tempora,  et 
nuUis  distinguantur  articulis,  qui  artieuli  per  siderum  cursus 
notantur,  possent  qnidem  tempora  currere  atque  praeterire, 
sed  intelligi  et  discerni  non  possent.  Sicut  horae  quando  nu- 
bilus  dies  est,  transeunt  quidem,  et  sua  spatia  peragunt,  sed 
distingui  a  nobis  et  notari  non  possunt."  The  reader  who 
will  take  the  pains  to  examine  the  passage,  will  see  that  Au- 
gustine is  treating  directly  of  our  present  subject. 

14* 


162      SOLAR  DAY  AND  SOLAR  DIVISIONS   OF  TIME. 

earth,  so  high  are  His  ways  above  our  ways,  and  His 
thoughts  above  our  thoughts."  For  with  Him  "  a  thou- 
sand years  are  as  one  day,  and  one  day  as  a  thousand 
3^ears.  They  are  as  yesterday*  when  it  is  passed  and 
as  a  watch  in  the  night" — ■ 

Ten  thousand  ages  in  thy  sight 

Are  like  an  evening  gone ; 
Short  as  the  watch  that  ends  tlie  night 

Before  the  rising  dawn. 

This,  it  should  be  remembered,  is  from  that  subUme 
and  most  ancient  production,  the  90th  Psalm,  entitled 
''  The  prayer  of  Moses,  the  man  of  God."  Is  there  any 
thing  unnatural,  far-fetched,  or  forced,  in  the  supposition 
that  the  same  superhuman  conception  may  have  been  in 
his  mind  when  he  was  writing  of  the  great  days  of  crea- 
tion,— the  days  of  God's  working,  the  days  of  "  the  right 
hand  of  the  Most  High  ?"  What  would  more  naturally 
suggest  the  thought  ?  What  adds  the  strongest  confirma- 
tion to  this  view  of  the  passage  is  its  direct  connection 
with  the  mention  of  the  work  of  creation  as  made  in  the 
second  verse  preceding :  "  Before  the  mountains  were 
horyi,  or  the  earth  had  been  brought  forth,  or  the  round 
world,  from  everlastmg  unto  everlasting,  taV^y— r?  GV-yw, 
from  olam  to  olam,  (from  aeon  to  aeon,  from  age  to  age,) 
Thou  art  God."    The  whole  force  of  the  contrast  between 

*  In  remarkable  analogy  with  the  Hebrew  notions  of  dura- 
tion, is  this  word  "S'^toinK,  commonly  rendered  yesterday.  It 
is  also  used  to  denote  past  time  generally, — sometimes  great 
antiquity,  or  that  which  is  long  past,  Thus,  Isaiah,  xxx,  33, 
"For  Tophet  is  ordained  of  old.^^  Compare,  also,  Micah, 
ii,  8.  It  is  the  same  word  that  is  here  used.  It  may  seem 
a  paradoxical  conception,  and  yet  the  ideas  of  transitori- 
ness  and  of  long  duration  would  appear  to  be  both  combined 
in  the  expression. 


TIME-MEASUREMENTS    AND   TIME-IDEAS.  168 

the  human  transitoriness  and  the  divine  eternity  depends 
upon  these  different  conceptions  of  time,  and  the  applica- 
tion of  the  distinction  to  the  greater  works  of  Deity.  If 
they  have  force  when  suggested  by  God's  deaUngs  in 
our  own  world,  age,  or  olam,  then  surely  would  there  be  a 
still  grander  harmony  of  idea,  when  they  come  to  the  mind 
from  the  contemplation  of  the  ages  during  which  the 
earth  was  brought  from  chaos  to  its  full  and  consummate 
existence  as  the  abode  of  rational  humanity. 

But  how  long  were  these  creative  days  ?  The  ques- 
tion must  remain  unanswered.  Perhaps  it  could  not  be 
answered  in  any  language,  or  any  computations  that  the 
human  mind  could  receive.  They  were  dies  ineffabiles. 
They  were  mcommeasurable  by  any  estimates  we  could 
apply.  The  whole  question,  too,  is  comparative.  In 
one  aspect  they  may  have  been  short,  in  another  im- 
mensely long.  The  Bible  has  not  told  us  anything  about 
it.  The  geologist  thinks  he  has  discovered  evidence 
that  they  were  of  vast  duration.  He  talks  very  flippantly, 
and  very  ignorantly,  of  milhons  and  billions  of  yeai'S. 
He  measures  the  operations  of  God  and  nature  then,  by 
the  movements  of  the  latter  as  they  come  under  his  pre- 
sent observation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  rigid  advo- 
cate of  the  twenty-four  hour  theory  presses  him  with  a 
great  many  very  puzzling  questions  as  to  the  rationale  of 
such  a  method,  which  our  confident  appellant  to  reason 
and  science  finds  it  very  difficult  to  answer.  Why  so 
many  ages  apparently  wasted  before  the  living  organiza- 
tions ?  Why  so  many  thousand  years  of  fungi  and  sea 
weed  ?  Why  so  many  ages  of  shell  fish  with  their  un- 
meaning varieties, —  unmeaning,  he  would  say,  as  long 
as  there  were  no  human  eyes  to  admire,  and  no  men  of 


164      SOLAK  DAY  AND  SOLAR  DIVISIONS  OP  TIME. 

science  to  classify  them  into  genera  and  species  ?  Why 
SO  many  unhistorical  centuries  of  zoophytes,  and  worms, 
and  monstrous  reptiles, — -  all  before  man  appeared  ?  What 
wisdom  in  all  this  ;  what  possible  design  worthy  of  an  all- 
wise  and  omnipotent  Being ;  wha^t  order,  what  fitness, 
what  beauty  ?  It  is  absurdity,  it  is  confusion,  says  the 
literalist,  it  is  worse  than  chaos,  it  is  worse  than  atheism, 
it  is,  in  truth,  a  godless  nature  that  would  work  in  this 
manner,  and  not  the  eternal  Wisdom.  Such  a  priori 
objections  may  be  pressed  mth  great  force  and  skill. 
The  geologist,  from  his  mere  scientific  position,  cannot 
answer  a  word.  It  would  certainly  look  like  a  very 
strange  proceeding.  But  then,  if  he  chooses  to  take 
other  ground,  and  assume  the  offensive,  he  may  turn 
right  round,  and  press  home  upon  our  hteralist  just  as 
many  questions  which  he  cannot  answer.  Why  a  world 
of  waters,  then  a  world  with  an  atmosphere  and  clouds, 
then  a  world  of  vegetation,  then  a  world  of  reptile  life, 
then  a  world  inhabited  by  quadrupeds,  each  precisely 
twenty-four  hours  before  the  other?  And  what  must 
have  been  the  apparatus  for  making  these  days  of  twenty- 
four  hours  that  had  their  date  before  the  outshining  of 
the  celestial  luminaries  ?  Did  the  light  go  out,  and  the 
darkness  come  back,  each  time,  from  its  submersion  in 
the  abyss  ?  Why  is  there  no  explanation  of  the  difiiculty 
which  the  writer  m.ust  have  seen  to  exist,  if  the  twenty- 
four  hour  duration  had  been  meant  ?  Why  is  there  not 
the  least  allusion  to  it  in  any  other  part  of  the  Bible  in 
which  the  creation  is  spoken  of,  and  its  marvels  made 
the  theme  of  praise  and  admiration  ?  What  possible 
conjectures  can  be  offered  on  this  head,  which  will  not 
seem  more  strange,  forced,  and  capricious,  than  any  posi- 


TIME-MEASUREMENTS  AND   TIME-IDEAS.  165 

tions  assumed  by  the  most  extravagant  geologist  ?  There 
is  no  end  to  such  questions.  Why  was  this  ?  and  why 
was  that  ?  and  how  was  this  ?  and  how  was  that  ?  They 
may  be  asked  to  affinity,  and  the  maintainor  of  the 
twenty-four  hour  hypothesis  cannot  answer  one  of  them 
without  resorting  to  that  divine  arUtrium  under  which 
the  scientific  spcculatist  may  take  shelter  as  well  as 
himself. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


as  the  heavens  are  high  above  the  earth,  so  are 
30d's  ways  above  our  ways,  and  his  thoughts 

ABOVE    OUR   thoughts. 

IDEAS  OF  SUCCESSION  AND  DURATION. — Do  THEY  EXIST  IN  THE  DiVINE  MIND  ? — 

Why  WAS  not  creation  instantaneous  ?— The  Divine  ways  unsearchable. 
The  child  interrogating  Newton. — Augustine's  view  of  the  creative 
days. — Dies  Ineffabiles. — Probable  conception  of  Moses. — Objection 
considered. — Language  of  prophecy. — Mysteriousness  of  the  style. 

We  have  been  considering  the  mutual  objections  of  the 
geologist,  and  the  literalist,  as  he  styles  himself.  There 
is,  however,  one  great  question  that  might  be  asked  of 
both — Why  was  not  the  whole  work  instantaneous? 
This  would  certainly  seem  to  accord  well  with  some  of 
our  supposed  a  priori  notions  of  the  Divine  dignity  and 
power.  We  say  supposed  notions,  for  when  we  carefully 
examine  the  grounds  of  our  thinking,  it  is  seen  that  the 
dignity  of  the  Divine  working  is  no  more  connected  with 
the  putting  forth  of  immense  power  in  a  moment  of  time, 
than  with  concentrating  the  same  power  on  an  atom  of 
space.  In  other  words,  it  is  no  more  compromised  by 
the  conception  of  duration  than  by  that  of  extent.  The 
other  view  is  a  mere  prejudice  arising  from  the  limita- 
tion and  imperfection  of  the  human  mind,  which  makes 
us  connect  the  idea  of  suddenness  with  any  great  exer- 
cise of  power ;  as  though  slowness,  whether  of  continuity, 
or  of  a  movement  per  gradus,  were  a  waste  of  energy. 


BO   THEY  EXIST  IN  THE  DIVINE  MINB  ?        16T 

It  comes  from  viewing  things,  as  we  are  compelled  to 
view  them,  solely  on  the  human  and  finite  side.  To 
God,  all  his  works  must  appear  a  totality,  with  none  of 
those  discrete  degrees  of  cause  and  effect  by  which  we 
are  forced  to  measure,  and^even  to  conceive  of,  duration. 
In  other  words,  the  remotest  natural  effect  (or  out-worJc- 
ing^  is  m  the  supernatural  cause  that  originates  the  whole 
inseparable  chain.  God  sees  it  in  the  cause.  It  is  there 
to  \x^  potentially ;  but  as  no  cause  can  be  inert  in  any 
part,  (this  being  contrary  to  the  essential  idea,)  -the 
whole  out-working  may  be  said  to  be  present  to  Him 
actually  as  well  as  potentially.  We,  on  the  other  hand, 
must  bring  it  into  moments,  or,  to  speak  wdth  more  ety- 
mological correctness,  into  instants.  We  must  connect 
them  in  our  minds  by  links  of  causation,  each  of  which 
we  are  compelled  to  think  of  as  parted  on  either  side 
from  its  antecedent  and  its  consequent  by  some  interval, 
or  we  cannot  think  of  them  at  all.  But  the  very  idea 
of  God  forbids  our  rightly  applying  this  to  Him  who  is 
as  immediately  in  all  time,  as  He  is  without  separation 
present  in  all  space.  We  err,  therefore,  on  the  side  of 
deficiency,  and  not  of  excess,  when  we  say  that  the  long- 
est chain  of  supernaturally  originated  causation,  though 
to  us  it  may  be  equivalent  to  the  whole  cycle  of  the 
mythical  magnus  annus,  or  great  year  of  our  own  mun- 
dane system,  may  be,  to  the  Divine  mind,  what  the 
circuit  of  the  electric  chain  is  to  the  human  sense,  and 
the  human  conception.  The  whole  is  one  Divine  act; 
the  whole  vibration  of  nature,  or  of  any  particular  cycle 
in  nature,  is  to  Him  instantaneous,  or,  we  might  more 
correctly  say,  without  instants.  The  beginning,  middle, 
and  end,  are  all  in  one  flash.     This  is  the  nearest  con- 


168  IDEAS   OF  SUCCESSION  AND  DURATION. 

ceptive  representation  we  could  make  of  the  ineffable  idea  a 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  even  our  electric  flash  which 
seems  to  us  so  instantaneous,  may  be  no  nearer  to  the 
absolute  instant, —  we  mean  as  far  as  any  absolute  mea- 
sure is  concerned,— than  the. .longest  aeon  of  creation; 
just  as  the  smallest  sensible  space,  if  we  measure  it  by 
its  conceivable  intervals,  may  be  no  nearer  to  absolute 
nothingness  than  the  distances  of  the  planets.  A  chro- 
nological microscope,  or  some  instrument  which  would 
magnify  time  in  a  way  analogous  to  the  effect  produced 
by  the  microscope  on  space, —  that  is,  would  widen  the 
angle  of  observation  which  we  may  conceive  of  as  sepa- 
rating the  mtervals  of  apparently  rapid  causation, —  such 
an  instrument,  we  say,  whether  its  power  be  regarded  as 
affecting  the  outer  or  the  inner  sense,  might  reveal  in  the 
telegraphic  flash  as  many  links,  each,  too,  having  its  own 
separate  moment,  as  the  keenest  science  can  count  in 
the  stratified  phenomena  of  the  long  creative  chain.* 
We  have  spoken  of  it  as  a  mere  conception  of  mathe- 
matical divisibility ;  but  it  may  be  thought  as  an  actual 
fact,  reahzed  by  some  actually  existing  mind  or  sense. 
Even  ui  the  electric  current  which  seems  to  us  so  instan- 
taneous, there  may  be  an  immensely  long  series  of  events, 
or  causative  links,  of  which  the  soul  endued  with  micro- 
scopic, or  rather  micro-chronical,  powers  of  sense,  would 
be  compelled  to  think,  if  it  thought  at  all,  as  presenting 
the  same  slowness,  gradualness,  or  proceeding  by  suc- 
cessive degrees — for  they  are  all  one   name   for   the 

*  Such  a  supposition  of  a  time  magnifier  we  know  cannot 
be  realized,  because  time  belongs  to  the  inner  sense,  and  is 
measured  by  the  flow  of  thought.  But  it  will  do  for  an  illus- 
tration. 


CREATION   WHY   NOT   INSTANTANEOUS?  169 

same  thing  —  which  the  geologist  finds  in  the  past  his- 
tory of  our  world.  Augustine  may  have  meant  something 
like  this  when  he  speaks  of  the  mysterious  first  day  as 
containing  all  the  rest.  The  whole  creation  may  be  said 
to  have  been  in  the  principium,  in  some  such  manner 
(if  we  may  compare  very  great  things  with  very  small) 
as  the  whole  of  the  day  or  the  month  is  in  the  coiled 
spring  of  the  clock. 

Is  it  said  that  all  this  is  mere  metaphysical  subtlety, 
endangering  belief  in  the  most  sober  convictions,  let  the 
charge  be  made  as  well  against  the  Psalmist  and  the 
Apostle.  In  what  we  have  said  about  duration  as  related 
to  the  Divine  mind,  we  have  only  dwelt  upon  their  own 
sublime  idea.  We  may  perhaps  have  been  "  darkening 
counsel"  in  endeavoring  to  explain  or  add  to  it,  but  the 
whole  truth  is  expressed  when  we  simply  repeat  their 
own  most  vivid  language,  "  A  thousand  years  are  with 
the  Lord  as  one  day,  and  one  day  as  a  thousand  years." 
But  we  must  view  things  from  our  own  stand-point ;  and 
here  the  question  not  only  becomes  natural,  but  may  be 
rationally  pressed  against  any  mere  theory  which  grounds 
itself  upon  certain  times  as  essential  to  the  work,  whether 
those  times  be  short  or  long,  or  by  whatever  standard 
we  may  attempt  to  measure  them.  Why  was  not  the 
whole  work  instantaneous  ?  What  need  had  God  of 
periods,  whether  of  twenty-four  hours  or  of  millions  of 
years  ?  It  is  all  strange,  very  strange,  on  either  hypo- 
thesis. All  our  speculations  run  up,  at  last,  into  the 
unaccountable.  The  naturalist  as  well  as  the  theologian 
has  at  last  to  take  shelter  in  mystery.  Every  one 
acquainted  with  Mercator's  map  of  the  world,  knows  how 
increasingly  monstrous  become  its  projections  the  farther 

15 


170  DIVINE   WAYS   UNSEARCHABLE. 

we  get  away  from  the  familiar  plane  of  the  equator.  So 
must  it  be  of  every  attempt  to  project  the  finite  upon  the 
infinite,  or  which  is  the  converse  of  the  same  thought,  to 
confine  the  infinite  to  an  identity  with  any  forms  and 
conceptions  of  the  finite.  One  thing,  however,  the  Bible 
does  teach  us  beyond  all  question,  and  that  is  reverence. 
There  are  difficulties  everywhere.  Science  is  revealing 
them  much  faster  than  she  solves  them,  and  one  of  her 
greatest  wonders  is  that  her  revelations,  in  this  respect, 
do  not  make  her  votaries  more  humble.  "  In  thy  light 
do  we  see  light,''  says  the  Psalmist,  when  speaking  of 
the  Divine  illumination,  but  of  human  science  the  seem- 
ing paradox  holds  strictly  true, —  through  her  light 
unaided  by  any  higher  beams,  we  see  only  an  ever- 
increasing  darkness. 

But  the  Scriptures,  too,  have  their  difficulties.  Na- 
ture and  redemption  are  both  full  of  strange  things. 
"  Lo  these  are  hut  parts  of  his  ways,"  says  Job,  xxvi,  14. 
The  expression  is  remarkable,  and  its  intimate  connection 
with  our  subject  warrants  us  in  briefly  dwelling  upon  it. 
"  Lo  these  are  but  the  ends  of  his  ways."  Such  is  the 
true  rendering  of  the  Hebrew  nisj?.  Umbreit  very  gra- 
phically translates  it,  Grenzlinien  seines  Weges  nur. 
"  Ofily  the  ultimate  linear  boundaries  of  his  tvays^  So 
Gesenius, — Extremce  linece  viarum  ejus.  "  The  things 
that  do  appear"  are  but  the  outside  extremities,  the  mere 
ends  of  the  threads,  we  may  say,  that  stick  out  from  the 
deep-laid  warp  and  woof  of  nature.  The  wondrous 
thought  is  carried  on  in  the  succeeding  clause, — "  How 
little  a  whisper*  (-ps?;)  is  heard  of  Him."     And  then  the 

*  Umbreit — Was  fiir  eiii  leiser  Laut  des  Worts  von  dein 
wirhoren?     Gesenius — Quid  est  (^quam  tenuis  esC)  susur- 


VWLLD   INTERROGATING   NEWTON.  171 

sublime  contrast, — "  But  the  thunder  of  his  power  who 
shall  understand."  If  we  can  but  just  receive  the  reve- 
lation of  his  glory  as  it  is  whispered  to  us  in  2^henomena, 
who  shall  hear  that  awful  voice,  should  it  attempt  to 
make  known  to  us  the  essential  mystery  of  the  universe  ? 
We  may  "interrogate  nature,"  we  may  interrogate 
revelation ;  but  when  we  have  His  answer,  through  one 
or  both,  we  have  no  right  to'  interrogate  farther  the 
Great  Workman  himself.  Imagine  the  lisping  child 
touching  the  hand  of  Newton,  and  enquiring  of  him  the 
meaning  of  the  abstruse  diagrams  and  operations  on  which 
he  is  so  intently  engaged.  Imagine,  too,  our  young 
philosopher  of  final  causes  exulting  in  the  discovery  that 
all  these  calculations  had  reference  to  his  greatest  amount 
of  "  pleasing  sensations,"  or  that  the  telescope  and  the 
orrery  were  but  toys  "benevolently  designed"  for  the 
promotion  of  the  "higher  happiness"  of  himself  and  his 
prattling  associates.  It  is  no  caricature  ;  it  falls  short 
instead  of  exaggerating ;  it  is  but  the  faintest  image  of 
that  sublime  Scriptural  image  which  rebukes  this  whole 
spirit,  whether  in  the  naturalist  or  the  commentator. 
"  Who  shall  touch*  His  hand,  and  say  unto  Him, —  tvhat 

rus  verhi  quod  nos  de  eo  audimus  ?  Symmachus — rt  8^ 
■^i6j^i(fix.a  Twv  Xoywv  auTou,  It  is  the  same  word  we  have, 
Job,  iv,  12,  where  there  is  a  like  whispering  revelation  in 
respect  to  the  spiritual  world  and  God's  moral  government. 
"A  word  was  secretly  brought  to  me  (or  stole  upon  me)  and 
mine  ear  received  a  whisperihQXQO^y 

*  Daniel,  iv,  32. — In  this  striking  passage  the  rendering 
"  to  stay,"  (to  stay  his  hand,)  although  it  gives  the  thought 
fails  in  presenting  the  imagery  which  is  in  the  Chaldaic  xh'o 
It  means   "to  touch,"  to  strike  gently — to  tap — to  lay  the 
hand  upon  one.     Gesenius,  after  a  number  of  quotations  from 


172 

worJcest  Thouf^  It  certainly  is  very  strange  ^2X  fungi 
should  exist  ten  thousand  years  before  man  ?  "What 
purpose  could  they  have  served  during  all  those  immense 
ages  ?  But  the  difl&culty  is  not  in  the  duration ;  it  is 
not  at  all  lessened  by  any  shortening  of  the  period.  It 
is  just  as  strange,  too,  that  the  system  of  the  world  should 
require  that  fungi  should  exist  exactly  three  times  twenty- 
four  hours  before  man.  It  is  very  strange  that  fungi, 
at  least  some  fungi,  should  exist  at  all.  But  all  such 
queries  are  met  again  by  the  impressive  rebuke  of  the 
Scripture,  — "  Who  hath  directed  the  spirit  of  the  Lord, 
(the  creative  Ruah  Elohim,)  or  being  his  counsellor  hath 
taught  Him  ?  With  whom  took  He  counsel,  and  who 
instructed  him,  and  taught  Him  the  path  of  right,  and 
showed  to  Him  the  way  of  understanding  ?  Who  shall 
touch  His  hand  and  say  unto  lEm,  What  doest  Thouf^ 
We  would  fortify  this  part  of  our  somewhat  prolonged 
argument  on  the  duration  of  the  periods,  by  referring  to 
the  opinion  of  St.  Augustine.  It  was  a  view  of  the  diffi- 
culties we  have  mentioned,  as  attending  the  supposition 
of  solar  periods  of  twenty-four  hours,  that  led  this  wisest 
of  the  Fathers  to  conclude  that  they  were  not  veri  dies, 
real  days,  or  the  same  as  our  natural  days,  but  periods, 
morce,  delays  or  intervals,  as  he  calls  them  on  account  of 
their  extraordinary  character.  It  is  of  no  importance 
here,  what  he  may  have  thought  of  their  duration, 
whether  longer  or  shorter.  Augustine  was  too  philoso- 
phical and  logical  to  make  a  precise  duration  of  twenty- 
four  hours,  or  what  was  equivalent  to  twenty-four  hours^ 

the  Arabic  and  Talraudic  writers,  thus  explains  the  passage — 
Metaphora  a  pueris  desumpta  est,  qui,  digitis  percussis,  a  re 
vetitsl  deterrentur. 


OP  THE   CREATIVE   DAYS.  173 

the  essential  of  a  day,  when  he  admitted  that  they  were 
extraordinary  in  respect  to  that  which  is  still  more 
closely  connected  with  the  common  idea, — we  mean  their 
measurement  by  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun.  He 
may  have  thought  them  short,  if  he  knew  of  no  proof  or 
reason  for  their  being  long ;  but  when  one  is  thus  fairly 
off  the  ground  of  the  solar  day  hypothesis,  there  is  nothing 
in  the  way  of  his  regarding  them  as  wholly  indefinite,  or 
as  having  any  such  duration,  as  a  consistent  explanation 
of  the  account  may  require. 

We  might  easily  fill  a  chapter  with  quotations  from 
this  Father,  and  very  pertinent  quotations,  too,  on  the 
great  question, — What  was  the  real  nature  of  these  days  ? 
It  is  sufficient  for  our  argument  that  he  regarded  them 
as  altogether  anomalous.  Some  of  his  explanations  are 
metaphysical,  involving  inquires  in  respect  to  the  ideas 
of  time  and  duration.  In  one  place  he  seems  to  think 
that  they  were  not  current  days,  that  is,  that  they  did  not 
pass  at  all,  (non  prceterirunt,^  or  had  not  strictly  durar 
tion,  because  they  were  before  the  birth  of  time  and 
belonged  to  the  aeonian  state.  But  this  is  unintelligible. 
He  refers  to  other  opinions  which  are  partly  allegorical 
and  partly  mystical.  Their  correctness,  however,  or 
their  agreement  with  modern  science,  is  a  matter  of  little 
importance  in  our  argument.  They  are  cited  only  to  show 
the  impression  the  Mosaic  language  made  on  one  of  the 
profoundest  minds  of  antiquity,  long  before  any  discove- 
ries in  science  could  have  turned  the  thought  from  what 
some  would  regard  as  the  literal  and  unmistakeable 
interpretation.  In  his  treatise,  De  Genesi  ad  Literam, 
Lib.  I,  Ch.  3,  he  thus  asks, —  Quid  ergo  volunt  tres  dies 
transacti  sine  luminaribus  ?  An  ista  dierum  et  noctium 
15* 


174  AUGUSTINE  S   VIEW 

eniameratio  ad  distinctionem  valet  inter  illam  naturam 
quae  non  facta  est  et  eas  quae  factae  sunt,  ut  mane 
nominarentur  propter  speciem,  vespera  vero  propter 
privationem  ?  The  distinction  of  morning  and  evening 
he  thus  supposes  to  be  a  distinction  between  a  nature 
not  yet  made  and  its  subsequent  manifestation.  Its 
coming  out  of  the  previous  imvation  is  the  morning.  It 
is  its  receiving  form  and  species,  (quo  facta  speciosa 
atque  formosa  sunt,)  as  the  words  signify  in  their  philo- 
sophical sense.  The  previous  chaotic,  or  comparatively 
chaotic,  condition  of  each  period,  is  its  evening ;  and  this, 
he  says,  still  rests  upon  them  so  far  as  they  are  regarded 
in  themselves,  or  in  their  possibility  of  returning,  should 
God  permit  it,  to  their  original  night.  To  the  same  efiect 
in  his  work,  Contra  Manichoeos,  Lib.  I,  Ch.  14, — Restat 
ergo  ut  intelligamus  in  mora  temporis  has  distinctiones 
sic  appellatas,  vesperam  propter  transactionem  consum- 
mati  operis,  et  mane  propter  inchoationem  futuri  operis. 
Habent  enim  consuetudinem  divinae  Scripturae  cTe  rebus 
humanis  ad  divinas  res  verba  transferre.  The  reason, 
it  will  be  perceived,  is  somewhat  similar  to  the  one  that 
1i?j  been  advanced,  that,  in  some  respects,  each  imperfect 
-state  was  a  night  to  the  more  perfect  that  succeeded. 
There  is  much  more  than  this  in  the  contrast  of  the  terms, 
but  even  such  an  explanation  is  more  natural,  more 
in  harmony  with  the  language  than  the  exegetical  fan- 
cies to  which  the  self-styled  literalist  has  to  resort  in 
order  to  make  a  morning  and  evening  without  a  rising 
and  setting  sun.  In  the  work,  De  Genesi  ad  Literam, 
Lib.  II,  Ch.  14,  he  returns  to  the  same  topic, —  Quis 
ergo  animo  penetret  quo  modo  illi  dies  transierint,  ante- 
qnam  inciperent  tempera  quae  quarto  die  dicuntur  incip- 


OF   THE   CREATIVE   DAYS.  175 

ere  ?  And  then  he  gives  the  same  distinction  as  in  the 
first  quoted  passage.  It  is  called  day,  circa  S2)eciem, 
or  the  coming  out  into  form  and  species  ;  it  is  called  night, 
<n7'ca  privationem.  But  this  evening  and  morning,  he 
proceeds  to  saj,  are  to  be  regarded  not  so  much  in 
respect  to  duration  (temporis  praeteritioneni)  as  in 
respect  to  their  marking  the  boundaries  of  a  periodical 
nature, —  per  quemdam  terminum  quo  intelligitur  quous- 
que  sit  naturae  proprius  modus,  et  unde  sit  naturae 
alterius  exordium.  The  times  made  by  the  heavenly 
bodies  are  altogether  diflferent.  These,  he  maintains, 
are  not  what  he  calls  spatia  morarum^  or  successions  in 
nature,  or  between  natures,  but  vicissitudines  affectionum 
coeli,  mere  changes  in  the  conditions  and  positions  of 
the  heavenly  bodies,  with  which  we  are  familiar.  Sed 
certe,  horae  et  dies  et  anni,  qiws  usitate  novimus,  non 
fierent  nisi  motibus  siderum.  In  another  passage,  (i>e 
G-enesi  ad  Literam,  iv,  26,)  where  he  had  been  treating 
of  the  Sabbath,  there  is  language  still  more  clear  and 
still  more  remarkable, —  Ac  sic  per  omnes  illos  dies  unus 
est  dies,  non  istorum  dierum  consuetudine  inteUigendus 
quos  videmus  eireuitu  solis  determinari  atque  numerari, 
sed  aUo  quodam  modo,  a  quo  et  illi  tres  dies  qui  ante 
conditionem  istorum  luminarium  commemorati  sunt  alieni 
esse  non  possunt. — "  The  day  (the  seventh)  is  to  be 
understood,  not  after  the  manner  of  those  that  wo  see 
made  by  the  circuit  of  the  sun,  but  in  another  peculiar 
manner,  not  unlike  that  which  characterized  the  first 
three  days  of  creation.'*  What  follows  puts  his  meaning 
beyond  all  doubt,  and  shows  that  he  was  not  merely 
endeavoring  to  account  for  the  three  ante-solar  days,  or 
the  phenomenal  manner  of  producing  them,  but  that  he 


176  DIES  INEFFABILES. 

regarded  the  whole  seven  as  belonging  to  this  same 
strange  category.  Even  after  the  ordination  of  the  sun 
and  heavenly  bodies,  the  remaining  creative  days  pre- 
served the  same  transcending  character.  They  were 
still  dies  ineffahiles,  or,  to  use  his  own  clear  language, 
"  days  and  nights  which  God  himself  had  divided  in  dis- 
tinction from  those  of  which  He  said  let  them  be  divided 
by  the  sun :"  Is  enim  modus  non  usque  ad  diem  quar- 
tum,  ut  inde  jam  istos  (id  est  quartum  quintum  sextum 
septimum)  usitatos  esse  cogitaremus,sed  usque  ad  sextum 
septimumque  perductus  est ;  ut  longe  aliter  acdpiendus 
sit  dies  et  nox  inter  quae  duo  di visit  Deus,  et  aliter  iste 
dies  et  nox  inter  quae  dixit  ut  dividant  luminaria ;  tunc 
enim  hunc  diem  condidit  quum  condidit  solem.  "  For 
that  mode  (the  unusual  or  anomalous  mode)  is  carried 
through,  not  merely  to  the  fourth,  as  though  we  should 
thenceforth  regard  the  others  as  usual  solar  days,  but 
even  to  the  sixth  and  seventh  ;  so  that,  throughout,  there 
is  to  be  a  far  different  understanding  of  the  day  and 
night  between  which  God  himself  divided,  and  that  other 
day  and  night  of  which  He  said  let  the  luminaries  divide 
them ;  for  this  latter  kind  He  then  established  when  He 
ordained  the  sun." 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  Fathers  were  poor  com- 
mentators ;  pious  and  good  men,  they  are  allowed  to  be, 
but  deplorably  ignorant  of  the  true  prmciples  of  herme- 
neutics.  It  is  true,  they  sometimes  see  what  is  not  in 
the  Scriptures,  and  yet  it  is  equally  true,  that  they  often 
see  what  is  really  there,  but  which  our  modern  scholar- 
ship in  its  boastful  blindness,  wholly  overlooks,  because 
it  is  not  really  looking  to  "  discover  wondrous  things  out 
of  God's  law."     But  why  should  the  most  modern  inter- 


GOD-DIVIDED    AND    SUN-DIVIDED   DAYS.  177 

pretation  have  so  generally  failed  to  notice  the  distinc- 
tion which  Augustine  presents  ?  It  is  certainly  patent  on 
the  very  face  of  the  language  when  we  come  to  view  it 
in  its  true  contrasts  and  its  true  emphasis.  When  the 
eye  is  once  upon  it,  we  see  that  it  could  not  have  been 
more  clearly  given  in  the  Hebrew  or  the  English.  There 
it  stands  in  the  Scripture,  plainer  than  any  records  of 
geology,  as  distinct  as  though  "  graven  with  an  iron  pen 
and  lead  in  the  rock  forever."  There  are  the  days 
which  Crod  divided,  —  supernaturally  divided  by  his  own 
direct  immediate  power  originating  a  new  thing,  or  a  new 
work,  in  nature  —  and  there  are  the  days  of  which  He 
said,  "  let  the  sun  divide  them,"  natural  days,  measured 
pff  in  the  regularly  returning  course  of  nature,  and  mark- 
ing the  interior  divisions  of  that  nature  instead  of  being 
its  exterior  chronological  bound.  Here  is  this  wondrous 
difference  patent,  we  repeat  it,  on  the  very  face  of  the 
account.  Can  we  read  of  these  two  kinds  of  days  so 
strikingly  contrasted  in  their  natural  and  supernatural 
character,  their  God-made  and  sun-made  modes  of  divi- 
sion, and  yet  believe  that  they  must  be  exactly  ahke  in 
all  the  other  features  with  which  we  are  familiar  as 
belonging  to  our  solar  periods  ?  In  other  words,  can  we 
recognize  the  immense  difference  in  their  work  and 
origin,  without  feeling  that  the  most  obvious  exegesis  is 
the  one  that  makes  a  corresponding  difference  in  their 
duration  ? 

There  is  a  place  for  other  quotations  of  a  similar  kind 
from  Augustine,  in  the  argument  respecting  the  Sabbath. 
Like  thoughts  abound  in  some  other  sections  of  his  argu- 
ment against  the  Manichseans.  He  recurs  to  the  subject, 
also,  in  his  great  work,  De  Civitafe  Dei,  Lib.  xi,  Ch.  S7, 


178  CONCEPTION   OF  MOSES. 

— Qui  dies  cujus  modi  sint,  aut  perdifficile  nobis  aut  etiam 
impossibile  est  cogitare,  quanto  magis  dicere.     "  Which 
days,  of  what  kind  they  were,  it  is  very  difficult,  yea, 
impossible,  for  us  even  to  think,  how  much  more  to  say"  ! 
But  our  quotations  are  enough  to  satisfy  the  reader  that 
ages  before  geology  was  thought  of,  or  science  had  pro- 
\  duced  any  motive  for  warping  the  Scriptures,  the  sound- 
I  est  minds  regarded  the   days  in  Genesis  as  denoting 
j  strange  anomalous  periods,  moras,  ot  intervals  in  creation, 
/   that  could  never  be  brought  under  our  common  solar 
measurements.     This   is  all   that  need   be  desired   as 
against  the  twenty-four  hour  literalist,  and  the  interpre- 
tation he  would  so  dogmatically  maintain. 

There  is  another  question  which  may  be  fairly  asked 
here,  and  to  which  therefore  we  would  give  attention. 
Can  it  be  supposed  that  Moses  himself  really  beUeved  in 
such  long  periods  as  the  geologist  talks  of  ?  Was  this,  or 
anything  like  this,  his  conception  of  the  word  day  when 
he  employed  it?  It  might  be  rephed  that  we  have 
/  nothing  to  do  with  Moses'  conception.  He  was  a  mere 
medium  to  write  down  certain  Hebrew  words,  and  if  the 
higher  Author  has  so  caused  the  language  to  be  arranged 
that  it  is  capable  of  any  expanding  sense  that  science 
may  demand,  it  is  enough.  Eut  with  this  we  should  not 
be  satisfied.  We  do  not  deem  the  position  wholly  tena- 
able.  According  to  the  theory  of  language  before  pre- 
sented, the  conception  is  part,  and  an  important  part, 
too,  in  the  chain  of  communication.  It  is  represented 
directly  by  the  words  it  suggests,  and  is  itself  represen- 
tative of  the  great  fact  which  stands  behind  it.  We  can 
not,  therefore,  wholly  dispense  with  the  thought  of  the 
/   writer.     The  higher  Author  of  the  Bible,  in  his  commu- 


CONCEPTION  OF  MOSES.  179 

laications  to  us,  made  use  of  the  conception  of  Moses  just 
as  truly  as  he  has  made  use  of  the  Hebrew,  or  language 
of  Moses,  through  which  that'  conception  was  both  pro- 
duced and  expressed.  It  is  enough,  however,  if  this 
conception  may  embrace  the  larger  idea,  and  does  not 
exclude  it.  It  may  be  scientifically  very  rude,  very  sim_ 
pie,  very  incorrect,  and  yet  wide  enough,  that  is  suffi- 
ciently indefinite  or  unbounded,  to  hold  all,  and  more 
than  all,  that  science  can  ever  bring  to  fill  it.  And  this 
furnishes  the  element  of  our  answer.  It  is  enough  for 
us  if  we  can  gather  from  the  face  of  the  account  itself, 
and  from  all  the  associations  of  thought  that  connect 
themselves  with  it,  that  the  writer,  be  he  who  he  may, 
was  not  confined,  and  did  not  consider  himself  confined, 
to  the  narrow  platform  of  the  twenty-four  hour  hypothesis. 
If  we  can  regard  him  as  fairly  ofi*  it,  or  if  he  has  said 
that  which  makes  it  impossible  that  we  should  view  him 
as  standing  on  it,  then  have  we  room  enough.  We 
answer,  therefore, —  It  is  not  supposed  that  Moses  had 
the  conception  of  our  modern  geologist ;  yet  still  we  no 
less  strongly  maintain  that  he  had  in  mind  something 
very  different  from  the  solar  periods  of  twenty-four  hours 
such  as  make  our  common  day.  They  were  to  him, 
not  geological  ages,  any  more  than  they  were  the  ordi- 
nary mornings  and  evenings,  but  the  great  days  of  God's 
working, —  strange,  extraordinary,  pneternatural  days,  i 
It  was  not  the  idea  of  the  modern  man  of  science,  yet  I 
still  it  might  embrace  it.  Did  the  writer  extend  his  mind 
beyond  the  limited  period  of  twenty-four  hours  ?  Were 
his  mornings  and  evenings  of  a  different  kind  from  those 
made  by  our  constant  sun-rising  and  sun-setting  ?  Did 
his  thought  go  abroad  into  the  indefinite  and  take  in — 


180  BEGmNING   OF   SOLAR  DAYS. 

to  what  extent  we  do  not  now  enquire — the  vast  in  time, 
as  well  as  in  space  and  power,  associating  it  with  the 
greatness  of  the  Divine  action,  and  measuring  it  by  days 
analogous  to  other  aspects  of  the  vast  conception  and 
such  as  the  thought  of  God's  working  would  naturally 
suggest  ?  Then,  however  limited  the  science  of  Moses, 
or  his  view  of  the  actual  universe,  there  is  room  enough 
in  the  expansion  of  such  a  conception  to  take  in  all  that 
science  has  discovered,  or  may  discover,  should  her  pro- 
gress even  extend  so  far  as  to  render  childish  and  obso- 
lete all  the  doctrines  and  all  the  language  in  which  she 
now  so  proudly  boasts. 

But  why,  then,  call  them  days  ?     On  this  objection, 
in  its  general  aspect,  sufficient  has  been  said.     A  more 
specific  form  of  it,  however,  is  drawn  from  the  undoubted 
mention  here  of  the  common  solar  period, —  "And  let 
them  be  for  years  and  for  days,^^  etc.     Can  it  be  sup- 
posed, says  the  objector,  that  the  indefinite  could  have 
been  intended  in  the  preceding  use,  and  that  then  there 
should  have  been  so  sudden  a  change.     We  think  we 
have  fairly  stated  the  difficulty,  and,  in  reply  to  it,  we 
say,  that  everything  depends  upon  the  stand-point  we 
occupy  in  our  interpretation.     In  one  aspect,  and  as  we 
think,  the  only  consistent  aspect  of  the  account,  this 
express  mention  of  the  solar  days  is  a  decided  confirma- 
tion of  the  view  that  has  been  taken.     The  declaration 
that  solar  days  now  begin,  seems  to  establish  the  position 
f  that  the  days  previously  mentioned  must  have  been  of  a 
different  character.     The  employment  of  the  same  word 
is  a  matter  which  resolves  itself  solely  into  the  usage  of 
language,  and  will  appear  natural  or  forced,  according  to 
our  familiarity,  or  want  of  famiharity,  with  such  usage. 


STAND-POINT   OF   INTERPRETATION.  181 

A  like  juxijaposition  of  terms  might  occur  in  our  own 
tongue,  without  exciting  surprise.  Our  own  language, 
like  most  others,  uses  the  word  day  to  denote  an  epoch 
or  cjcHcal  period,*  and  an  English  writer,  in  setting  forth 
an  order  or  scheme  of  creation,  could  say  with  perfect 
propriety,  and  without  meaning  to  be  poetical,  in  that 
day  there  first  commenced  the  regular  division  and  mea- 
surement of  years,  and  days^  and  seasons.  Still  more 
consistent  would  it  be  in  the  Hebrew,  where  yom  is 
the  most  common  word  for  indefinite  period,  and  would 
most  naturally  come  to  the  reader's  mind  whenever  that 
idea  had  to  be  expressed. 

In  such  interpretation  everything  depends  upon  the 
association  of  ideas  and  feeling,  which  is  forced  upon  us 
by  the  context.  Should  one  thus  take  the  word  day 
in  some  plain  historical  passage  in  Kings,  or  Chronicles, 
or  the  "  Books  of  the  Matters  of  the  Days,"f  (ea^tosn  •'•na^j) 
as  it  is  called,  he  might  justly  be  condemned  as  extrava- 
gant. There  is  no  call  there  for  such  an  interpretation. 
We  do  not  mean  merely  that  there  is  no  exigeiitia  loci, 
but  that  there  is,  moreover,  an  utter  want  of  harmony 
with  such  an  idea.  Everything  looks  the  other  way.  It 
would  be  purely  arbitrary,  if  not  utterly  absurd.  But 
take  next  a  passage  from  one  of  the  prophetical  books, 
where  the  writer  is  looking  out  into  the  great  uncreated 

*  It  may  have  come  to  us  from  the  Bible,  like  some  other 
idioms  in  our  language  which  have  the  appearance  of  oriental- 
isms. 

t  Even  here,  however,  the  word  is  used  more  properly  of 
years  than  solar  days,  and  would  be  better  rendered  Annalia 
than  Diurnalia.  It  is  chronological  history — or  history  re- 
corded with  reference  to  measured  times,  instead  of  being  a 
list  of  events  simply. 

16 


182  PROPHETICAL  DAYS. 

future,  where  the  whole  context  favors  the  thought  of  the 
vast,  the  unknown,  the  indefinite,  the  unmeasured, — 
where  great  events  viewed  fer  se  and  without  reference  to 
their  chronological  extent,  or  strict  chronological  connec- 
tions, image  themselves  upon  the  canvas  of  the  prophetic 
eye.  In  the  midst  of  such  associations  we  feel  that  the 
case  is  quite  different,  and  all  the  laws  of  sober  hermeneu- 
tics  require  a  different  treatment  of  the  language.  "  In 
that  day  shall  the  mountain  of  the  Lord's  house  be  estab- 
lished on  the  tops  of  the  mountains,  and  all  nations  shall 
flow  into  it."  The  thought  of  solar  days  here  is  alto- 
gether out  of  place ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  can  we 
explain  the  use  of  the  term  as  merely  poetical.  There 
is  something  more  than  illustrative  metaphor,  there  is  a 
propriety  in  the  language  which  is  independent  of  all 
mere  rhetorical  or  tropical  adornment.  The  word  has 
its  true  and  literal,  yet  vastly  expanded  and  elevated, 
sense.  Take  still  another  case  in  which  the  term  occurs 
in  connection  with  specific  numbers,  and  with  something, 
too,  of  a  chronological  aspect,  but  everything  around  is 
mysterious,  extraordinary,  and  of  a  nature  to  carry  us 
out  of  the  common  chronological  associations  of  regular 
time-measured  periods.  In  such  circumstances  it  does 
not  strike  us  as  at  all  unnatural  to  interpret  days  by 
years,  or  even  longer  cycles  of  time.  Whether  our 
specific  view  as  to  mere  duration  be  well  founded  or  not, 
we  feel  that  the  extraordinary  interpretation  is  demanded 
by  the  whole  air  and  spirit  of  the  passage.  The  'weeks 
of  Daniel  and  the  days  of  the  x\pocalypse  we  cannot 
treat  as  ordinary  weeks  and  days.  The  grandeur  of  the 
prophecy  wholly  collapses  on  such  a  view.  Aside  from 
all  questions  of  chronological  correctness,  the  narrow 


MYSTERIOUSNESS   OP   THE   STYLE.  183 

■estimate  is  felt  to  be  out  of  critical  and  hermeneutical 
harmony  with  the  accompanying  imagery.  We  are  in  the 
midst  of  the  vast,  the  obscure,  the  mysterious.  We  are 
brought  in  connection  with  ideas  which,  although  capable 
of  partial  revelation,  are  in  a  great  degree  ineifable.  We 
permit  the  feeling  to  influence  our  interpretations,  and 
we  act  naturally  and  consistently  in  so  doing. 

Carry  this  out,  then,  and  w^ould  it  not  apply  with  equal, 
if  not  still  greater,  force,  to  the  wondrous  account  of  the 
creation,  taking  us  away  back  into  the  unmeasured  and 
immeasurable  regions  of  the  past,  just  as  prophecy  throws 
the  beams  of  its  lamp  upon  the  dark  places  of  the  distant 
future.  Here,  too,  then,  is  everything  to  suggest  the 
same  associations  of  the  marvellous  and  the  extraordinary. 
The  word  employed  is  a  very  common  one,  but  the  man- 
ner of  expression  is  very  strange,  and  designed,  we 
think,  to  give  us  an  intimation  of  something  very  strange 
in  its  significance.  It  is  a  mode  of  speech  unique  upon 
the  face  of  the  Scripture.  There  is  certainly  nothing 
like  it  in  any  of  the  chronological  parts  of  revelation. 
Time  is  nowhere  else  reckoned  in  this  mysterious  manner, 
—  There  was  an  evening  and  there  was  a  morning  —  one 
day, —  There  was  an  evening  and  there  was  a  morning  — 
second  day, — There  was  an  evening  and  there  was  a 
morning — third  day,  etc.  There  was  one  of  these  days 
in  which  God  rested.  Was  that  twenty-four  hours  long  ? 
Has  it  been  finished  and  the  work  of  creation  again 
resumed  by  the  great  Architect  ?  And  then  there 
is  the  day  of  days,  w^hen  the  whole  creative  genesis,  or 
series  of  generations  (nSnV'in)  is  summed  up  in  one  grand 
period  called  "•  the  day  in  which  the  Lord  made  the 
heavens  and  the  earth."     We  do  not  say  that  here  is? 


184  MYSTERIOUSNESS    OF   THE   STYLE. 

in  all  respects,  the  same  style  as  in  the  other  parts  of 
the  Scripture  referred  to,  but  we  are  in  the  midst  of 
ideas  suggestive  of  a  similar  expansion  of  thought  and 
feeling,  and  which  should,  therefore,  be  permitted  to 
have  a  similar  expanding  effect  on  our  interpretation  of 
language. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


CREATION   OF   TIME. 

Division  of  time. — PlUle  of  the  heavenly  bodies. — Regulate,  oub  phy- 
sical LIFE. — An  aid  to  our  rational  existence. — He  made  the  stars 
also. — In  what  sense  made  for  us. — Regulators  of  the  seasons. — Tuk 
POET  Aratus. — Whole  for  the  parts. — Astrology. — Phenomenal  uses. 

"  And  let  them  be  for  signs,  and  for  seasons,  and  for  days, 
and  for  years."  ^'  And  he  made  them  to  riile  the  day, 
or  for  the  rule  of  the  day,  and  for  the  rule  of  the  night." 
We  have  ah-eady  compared  with  this  the  passage.  Job, 
xxxviii,  33, —  "  Knowest  thou  the  ordinances  of  the  hea- 
vens? Canst  thou  set  their  dominion  in  the  earth?" 
There  is  here  the  same  idea  of  appointing,  ordaining, 
arranging,  in  distinction  from  creation.  But  not  to  dwell 
further  on  this,  we  would  present  another  thought,  which 
comes  to  us  from  the  Hebrew  nVty^^.     There  is  a  beau- 

T  T     :  •.• 

tiful  suggestion,  which  may  be  regarded  as  fairly  con- 
necting itself  with  the  etymological  significance  of  the 
word.  More  than  any  other  kindred  root  in  Hebrew, 
the  verb  presents  the  idea  of  ruling  by  law,  by  conformity 
to  a  measured  and  measuring  standard.  This  it  gets 
from  the  radical  primary  sense  of  comparison.,  assimila- 
tion, agreement  with  some  canon  or  rule  ;  and  hence  the 
authority  or  dominion  expressed  by  it  is  more  properly 
one  of  guidance,  regulation,  direction,  than  of  arbitrary 
and  undetermined  power.  We  see  this  in  the  noun  V^iw, 
16^ 


186       RULE  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  BODIES. 

a  similitude,  a  proverb,  a  parable,  hence  applied  to  any 
regulated  or  poetical  construction  of  language. 

Now,  in  this  sense,  and  without  pressing  too  far  the 
etymological  image,  we  may  say  that  it  has  a  striking 
and  beautiful  application  to  the  dominion  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  in  respect  to  our  earth. 

The  motions  of  the  sun  and  moon,  or  of  the  earth  in 
relation  to  them,  are  not  only  in  themselves  the  result  of 
law,  or  conformity  to  regulative  canons,  but  productive 
of  a  corresponding  assimilation,  or  conformity,  in  our 
general  terrestrial  physics.  The  vegetable  and  animal 
worlds  become  modified  by  it.  The  growth  of  plants, 
and,  perhaps,  of  all  organic  substances,  is  different  from 
what  it  would  have  been  in  the  absence  of  any  such 
arrangement.  But  more  than  all  this ;  it  doubtless 
exerts  an  important  influence  over  the  exercises  of  the 
rational  soul.  Every  one  who  reflects  must  see  that  the 
exact  knowledge  of  years,  and  times,  and  eras,  constitutes 
one  of  the  great  differences  between  the  civilized  and 
savage  state,  even  where  such  knowledge  is  regarded  as 
simply  affecting  those  outward  utilities  that  depend  upon 
accurate  canons  of  time.  Next  to  the  Bible,  the  most 
important  book  for  the  human  race  is  doubtless  the  alma- 
nac. Without  an  accurate  measurement  of  the  day  and 
year,  there  could  be  no  chronology ;  without  chronology 
there  could  be  no  history ;  without  history  there  could 
be  no  national  or  generic  experience  ;  without  such  expe- 
rience there  could  be  no  progress ;  and  without  progress 
there  could  be  no  civilization.  All  this,  perhaps,  would 
be  readily  admitted  in  its  bearing  on  our  outward  state 
and  relations.  But  do  we  sufficiently  appreciate  the 
direct  relation  of  such  measurements  to  the  laws  of  our 


EFFECT  UPON  BODY  AND  MIND.        187 

inner  life  ?  What  would  we  be,  what  would  our  minds 
become,  without  known  divisions  of  time  ?  How  much 
is  our  very  thinking,  yea,  the  very  law  of  our  thinking, 
determined  by  them  ?  They  form  the  connection  between 
the  inner  and  the  outer  worlds.  By  means  of  them,  even 
our  material  frame  is  brought  into  harmony  with  the 
phenomenal  universe.  Our  human  micro-cosmos  is  timed 
and  tuned  to  the  great  kosmos.  The  circulation  of  the 
blood,  the  periodical  working  of  the  general  animal  ma- 
chinery, gets  modulated  in  accordance  with  its  unvary- 
ing cycles ;  and  we  know  that  these  movements  of  our 
bodily  microcosm  regulate,  in  a  large  degree,  the  flow  of 
the  thoughts  and  emotions.  When,  through  any  exciting 
cause,  we  think  or  feel  at  a  faster  rate  than  would  be  in 
sympathy  vfith  these  internal  periods,  we  are  reminded 
of  it  by  a  fever,  or  some  other  ill  effect  proceeding  from 
the  spiritual  to  the  animal  or  sentient  economy. 

Take  away,  then,  all  outward  measures  of  time,  and 
formed  as  we  now  are  of  soul  and  body,  it  would  be  like 
removing  the  regulator,  or  balance  wheel,  of  the  whole 
system.  The  inner  as  well  as  the  outer  machinery  would 
run  down.  Our  souls  would  become  chaotic,  our  thoughts 
unregulated  ;  our  life  a  dream,  in  which  past  phenomena, 
present  sensations,  and  future  imaginations  would  be 
mingled  in  hopeless  confusion.  For  the  want  of  such  a 
regulator,  man  with  his  boasted  intellect  would  sink 
below  all  that  is  known  of  the  condition  of  the  savage. 
For  this  reason  alone,  had  there  been  no  other,  he  could 
not  have  existed  with  his  present  mental  and  bodily 
organization  in  the  ante-solar  periods,  or  before  these 
arrangements  for  recurring  vicissitudes  and  regular  times 
had  been  brought  into  operation. 


188 

Vegetable  life  might  have  been  supported  long  before. 
Warmth  and  light,  if  necessary,  might  have  been  pro- 
duced, in  all  required  abundance,  from  chemical  agencies 
solely  terrestrial.  Animals,  we  are  expressly  told,  com- 
menced existence  after  the  celestial  ordinations  of  the 
fourth  period ;  but,  for  all  that  science  could  say  to  the 
contrary,  there  might  have  been  some  species  of  torpid 
animal  natures  millions  of  years  before  the  sun  was 
appointed  to  rule  the  day.  Man,  however,  with  his  pre- 
sent physical  and  spiritual  constitution,  could  not  have 
existed  as  man,  —  that  is,  as  a  comparing,  assimilating, 
time-measuring  intellect,  whose  most  constant  and  prac- 
tical exercise  of  rationality  consists  in  judging  the  future 
by  the  past,  through  the  aid  of  those  regulated  divisions 
without  which  his  conceptions  of  both  would  present  only 
a  dark  and  formless  abyss.  In  other  words,  without 
some  such  arrangement,  he  must  either  rise  above  time 
and  "  be  as  Gods,"  that  is,  think  as  God  thinks,  or  fall 
below  it,  into  that  state  which  is  alone  adapted  to  the 
irrational  animal  nature. 

''  He  made  the  stars  also^  In  the  Hebrew  the  ex- 
pression is  peculiar.  It  is  without  any  governing  verb, 
and  seems  to  come  in  by  way  of  a  note  in  passing. 
Moses  does  not  say  that  he  made  the  stars  to  give  light 
upon  the  earth,  although  this  may  be  inferred  from  the 
connection.  Much  less  does  he  say  that  he  made  them 
for  no  other  purpose.  The  mention  of  the  moon  and  the 
night  makes  this  the  proper  place  to  speak  of  them,  if 
/  they  are  to  be  alluded  to  at  all,  and  the  writer  makes 
this  brief  note  or  scholium, —  "  He  made  the  stars  also ;" 
or,  still  more  concisely, —  "  the  stars  also."     When,  and 


THEIR  RELATION  TO  THE  EARTH.       189 

how,  and  why  ?  In  respect  to  these  questions  no  informa- 
tion is  given  to  us.  It  is,  however,  still  objected  to  the 
Mosaic  account,  that  it  seems  to  represent  the  celestial 
bodies — certainly  the  sun  with  its  huge  bulk — as  having 
been  made  for  the  use  of  our  earth,  and  for  such  use 
alone.  But  giving  the  language  such  a  meaning  as  the 
objection  demands,  and  laying  aside  all  such  considera- 
tions as  we  before  adverted  to  in  respect  to  the  compara 
tive  insignificance  of  mere  space  magnitude,  the  represen- 
tation might  still  be  maintained  as  being  in  accordance 
with  that  oldest  and  truest  philosophy  that  regards  the 
universe  as  a  kosmos,  or  unity,  in  which  each  part  is 
made  for  the  whole ;  whilst  no  less  really  and  truly  may 
it  be  conversely  said,  that  the  whole  is  in  some  way  for 
each  and  every  part. 

Moses  may  not  have  known  of  any  other  uses.  But 
he  knew  from  his  reason,  as  well  as  from  God's  inspira- 
tion, that  whatever  in  the  physical  world  anything  statedly 
and  regularly  does,  that  thing  it  was  designed  to  do. 
To  the  pious  soul,  the  a  priori  argument  here  is  not  only 
first,  but  strongest.  It  starts  with  the  designer,  and 
thence  infers  the  design  in  the  fact.  Thus  it  operates, 
and  thus,  therefore,  was  it  intended  to  operate.  In  this 
view  the  sun  and  moon  were  certainly  made  to  give  light 
upon  the  earth,  and  to  7'ide  the  earth's  seasons  whatever 
other  designs  may  have  been  in  their  creation,  or  their 
appointment  with  reference  to  our  own  world.  The  inter- 
pretation does  not  demand  it,  and  yet  we  may  extend 
the  same  view  to  the  stars.  The  light  they  give  the 
earth  could  hardly  have  been  in  the  writer's  mind  at  all, 
but  the  other  use  may  have  been  intended,  and  that,  too, 
with  great  propriety.     They  rule  the  seasons  and  the 


190  REGULATORS    OP   YEARS   AND    SEASONS. 

years ;  that  is,  they  regulate  our  knowledge  of  them ;  and 
in  the  early  ages  of  the  world,  were  almost  the  oiJy 
means  for  this  end.  They  furnished  the  rule  or  canon 
by  which  they  were  determined.  The  first  nations  had 
no  other  almanack  than  the  roUing  heavens.  Spring  and 
summer,  plowing,  sowing,  and  reaping  time,  were  regu- 
lated by  the  rising  and  setting  of  certain  constellations. 
Their  use  in  this  respect  is  referred  to,  not  only  by  the 
Greek  and  Latin  poets,  but  also  in  the  Bible.  "  Canst 
thou  bring  out  Mazzaroth  in  its  seasons  ?"  The  ''  bands 
of  Orion"  are  the  iron  chains  of  the  wintry  frosts  and 
storms;  the  "sweet  influences  of  Pleiades"  represent 
the  return  of  the  genial  vernal  season,  and  of  that  revi- 
viscence  of  nature  of  which  the  hehocentric  rising  of  this 
beautiful  constellation  was  the  well  known  rule  or  signal. 
The  thought  is  admirably  expressed  by  the  old  poet 
Aratus,  in  the  beginning  of  his  Phaenome^ia. 

AuTog  ya^  rays  2HMAT'  ev  ou^avw  idrrj^i^sv. 

The  stars*  propitious  power  he  shows  to  men, 
And  high  in  heav'n  firm  binds  their  ruling  signs. 

One  might  almost  fancy  it  a  free  translation  of  the  very 
language  of  Moses,  —  "He  set  them  in  the  firmament 
for  signs,  and  for  seasons,  and  for  days,  and  for  years." 
In  the  same  manner  Cicero  speaks  of  them  as  the  mode- 
rators or  7nders  (d-^Vtyto)  of  those  temporal  vicissitudes, 
by  the  accurate  knowledge  of  which  man  is  distin- 
guished from  the  brute.  Cum  videmus  vicissitudines 
dierum  atque  noctium,  commutationesque  temporum 
quadripartitas,  ad  maturitatem  frugum  et  ad  tempera- 
tionem  corporum  aptas,  eorumque  omnium  moderatorem 
et  ducem  solem,  lunamque  quasi  fastorum  notis  signantem 


THE  WHOLE   FOR  THE  PARTS.  191 

dies, —  turn  quinque  stellas  eosdem  cursus  constantissime 
servantes,  etc.     Tusc.  Quoes.  I,  28. 

These  important  uses  they  serve,  and  we  may  there- 
fore truly  say,  as  far  as  our  earth  is  concerned,  that  for 
such  purposes  they  were  manifested  in  the  firmament, 
A  one-sided  science  may  object  to  the  language,  but  a 
more  catholic  philosophy  endorses  it  without  scruple.  In 
such  philosophy  the  idea  of  a  perfect  organic  whole  is 
that  in  which  the  whole  and  all  the  parts  are  mutually 
and  reciprocally  ends  and  means,  —  not  only  each  part 
for  the  whole,  which  is  the  finding  of  a  mere  mechanical 
physics,  but  the  whole  for  each,  and  each  for  each.  The 
remotest  systems  have  a  bearing  upon  our  earth,  and  our 
earth  on  the  remotest  systems.  No  part  is  what  it  would 
be,  except  as  such  a  part  of  such  a  whole.  It  is  from 
this  idea,  grossly  perverted  as  it  may  have  been,  came 
the  old  astrology.  The  destiny  of  each  world,  the  des- 
tiny of  each  man,  was  supposed  to  vary  according  to  the 
state  of  the  universe  when  he  came  into  being.  The 
doctrine  was  founded  upon  a  glorious  thought  which 
more  than  redeems  its  superstitious  abuses.  It  was  the 
oneness  of  the  kosmos,  —  an  idea  which,  even  when  held 
in  connection  with  the  grossest  ignorance  in  respect  to 
facts,  is  of  more  value  than  any  science,  however  accu- 
rate and  extensive,  that  does  not  make  it  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  all  its  investigations. 

In  connection  with  this,  there  comes  up  a  thought 
analogous  to  one  on  which  we  have  before  dwelt  at  some 
length.  In  setting  forth  the  facts  of  creation,  the  Mosaic 
record  takes  as  their  representatives  the  most  outward 
or  obvious  phenomena,  that  is,  ''  the  things  that  are 
seen,"  and  that  appear  the  same  for  all  eyes  and  for  all 
ages.     Science  takes  the  more  interior  phenomena,  but 


192  PHENOMENAL  USES. 

revelation  could  not  adopt  any  language  built  upon  them, 
because  the  farther  or  more  inward  progress  of  science  is 
ever  rendering  it  obsolete.  So,  also,  when  the  Bible 
speaks  of  uses,  it  takes  those  more  obvious  and  outward 
ones  which  all  minds  at  once  acknowledge.  In  this  way 
it  answers  its  great  end  of  being  universally,  and  for  all 
times,  inteUigible,  without  contradicting,  or  coming  in 
collision  with,  any  other  phenomena,  or  any  other  uses 
which  the  progress  of  scientific  discovery  may  bring  to 
light.  Science  boasts  of  having  ascertained  other  ofiices 
for  the  sun,  beside  that  of  giving  light  upon  the  earth 
and  exercising  a  dominion  over  our  thoughfb  in  the  regu- 
lation of  years  and  seasons.  But  has  she  yet  determined 
the  great  design— we  mean  the  great  physical  design— 
which  embraces  aU  others,  and  to  which  all  partial  ends 
are  incidental  or  subordinate  ?  Can  she  give  the  highest 
or  most  ultimate  physical  reason  for  the  sun  or  the  solar 
system?  Is  it  likely  she  will  ever  discover,  or  even 
approximate  to,  this  design,  or  this  reason,  in  its  bearing 
upon  other  systems,  and  other  systems  of  systems,  and 
so  on  to  the  entire  universe  of  material  being  ?  If  she, 
too,  then,  must  be  content  with  intermediate  uses,  let 
her  adore  the  higher  wisdom  of  revelation,  in  taking  those 
which,  although  seemingly  the  most  partial  and  local,  do 
present,  in  fact,  a  language  so  much  surpassing  her  own 
in  impressiveness,  in  catholicity,  in  enduring  moral  power. 
Let  astronomy  be  carried  ever  so  far  theoretically,  the 
great  practical  uses  of  the  stars  to  us  will  continue  to 
be  the  accurate  determination  of  the  year,  the  regulation 
of  the  seasons,  and  the  safe  navigation  of  ships.  For 
these  uses,  therefore,  if  not  created,  they  were  at  least 
appointed,  and  revealed  to  our  earth. 


CHAPTER  XYI. 


WORK   OF   THE   FIFTH   DAY. 

Phoduction  of  the  animal  baces. — Production  out  of  the  earth. — Lite- 
ral   SENSE. — COJI.MON  PREJUDICES. — MuST  NOT  BE  AFRAID   OF  NATURALISM. — 

Hebrew  words  of  production. — ^Definition  of  nature. — Discrete  degrees 

CAN  NHVER  PASS  INTO  EACH  OTHER. — ThE  SUPERNATURAL. — ThE  CONNATURAL. 
— The  CONTRA-NATURAL. — ThE  UNNATURAL. — WORDS  FOE  GROWTH  AND  BIRTH 

IMPLY  DURATION.— Theories  of  animal  production. — Milton. — Old  greek 
F-iNCiEs. — The  omnific  word. — A  nature  in  the  earth. 

To  this  period  belong  the  birth  and  growth  of  the  ani- 
mal races.  We  would,  however,  take  in  connection  with 
it  the  germination  of  plants,  which,  the  reader  will  recol- 
lect, was  reserved  for  subsequent  discussion  under  this 
head,  because  of  its  presenting  the  same  questions  and 
having  the  same  bearing  upon  our  general  argument 
respecting  the  true  nature  of  the  creative  days.  Going 
back,  therefore,  to  the  third  period,  we  find  there,  as 
here,  a  pecuUar  feature  in  the  account  to  which  sufficient 
attention  has  not  been  given. 

And  here,  especially,  would  we  appeal  to  those  who 
assume  to  be  the  exclusive  advocates  of  the  fair  and  literal 
interpretation,  or  contend  that  we  must  take  language  in 
its  most  obvious  and  ordinary  sense.  It  has  been  shown, 
that  in  determining  this  easy  sense,  everything  depends 
on  getting  a  true  position  in  respect  to  a  writing  so 
ancient  and  on  a  subject  so  much  out  of  the  track  of  ordi- 
nary ideas.  But  have  these  advocates  of  Hteralism  well 
weighed  the  Htcral,  and,  as  it  would  seem,  only  possible 
meaning  of  the  words  here  employed  ?    The  writer,  too, 

IT 


194  WE   MUST   FOLLOW   THE   RECORI>. 

is  in  favor  of  the  literal  seme,  that  is,  the  true  sense, 
made  out  bj  the  most  sober  consideration  of  everything 
which  should  control  our  view  of  the  proper  significance 
of  language.  Let  us,  then,  follow  the  record  wherever 
it  leads  us ;  even  though  it  may  sometimes  seem  to  favor 
naturahsm,  in  opposition  to  what  might  be  thought  to  be 
the  more  pious  conclusion.  We  know  nothing  about 
these  old  matters  but  what  the  Bible  tells  us.  Science 
here  is  dumb.  Geology  finds  very  ancient  vegetable  and 
animal  remains,  but  gives  us  no  light  whatever  on  the 
questions,  whence  they  came,  or  how  they  commenced 
the  origin  of  their  existence.  In  no  part  of  the  history 
of  creation  are  we  thrown  more  completely  on  the  record ; 
in  no  part  is  the  language  less  suggestive  of  anything  out 
of  the  most  common  significance  of  terms ;  and  yet  it  is 
not  a  little  singular  that  no  commentators  are  more  pre- 
pared to  break  over  the  common  senses  of  words,  and  to 
do  violence  to  language  here,  than  those  who  are  the 
most  narrow  in  their  interpretations  elsewhere,  and  espe- 
cially in  those  parts  where  the  widest  significance  would 
seem  to  be  demanded  by  the  Avhole  aspect  of  the  account. 
There  are  some  common  opinions  which  affect  our 
view  of  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  words,  and  yet  these 
opinions  or  prejudices  could  never  have  come  from  the 
mere  study  of  the  passage  itself  They  may  be  thought 
to  be  more  pious,  more  in  accordance  with  what,  in  our 
conception,  is  due  to  the  Divine  dignity ;  but  they  involve 
a  departure  from  the  literal  sense,  or  anything  like  the 
literal  sense,  much  wider,  to  say  the  least,  than  an  inter- 
pretation which  only  follows  one  of  the  most  universal 
laws  of  language  in  giving  an  indefinite  sense  to  a  word 
of  time. 


THEORIES    OF   ANIMAL   PRODUCTION.  195 

A  common  opinion  is,  that  the  first  vegetable  and  ani- 
mal formations  were  direct  acts  of  God ;  and  most  of 
those  who  hold  it  think,  perhaps,  that  they  have  derived 
it  from  the  Scriptural  statements.  This  opinion  presents 
two  aspects.  Some  would  maintain,  that,  as  in  the  origin 
of  man,  they  proceeded  in  each  case  from  a  primitive 
pair,  or  from  a  primitive  individual,  or  specific  progenitor 
the  immediate  creation  of  the  Divine  hand,  and  had 
thence,  from  such  individual  centre,  spread  themselves 
over  all  those  parts  of  the  earth  in  which  they  are  to  be 
found.  Another  theory  would  regard  them  as  created 
in  numbers,  and  assigned  to  their  positions  in  all  quarters 
of  the  globe,  thus  constituting  a  great  many  centers  of 
production.  In  both  cases  the  original  plants  and  ani- 
mals would  be  direct  creations,  coming  immediately 
from  the  ab-extra  plastic  power,  or  mechanical  shaping 
of  the  Deity.  But  certainly,  the  account  does  not  tell 
us  anything  like  this.  There  is  no  language  from  which 
we  could  infer  it.  There  is  nothing  in  any  other  parts 
of  the  context  that  would  shut  us  up  to  it.  There  are 
no  metaphors  which  would  in  any  way  imply  it.  There  are 
no  words  containing  the  germs  of  ideas  which  could  possibly 
be  expanded  so  as  to  embrace  such  a  conception.  Nay, 
more,  any  interpretation  of  the  kind,  even  had  there 
been  something  in  the  context  to  favor  it,  is  directly 
excluded  by  the  positive  assertion  of  a  process  which 
involves  the  contrary  supposition. 

"  And  God  said, —  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  grass ^ 
the  herb  yielding  seed  (or  seeding  seed)  after  its  kind, 
and  the  fruit  tree  yielding  fruit  whose  seed  is  in  itself, 
after  its  kind,  and  it  was  so  —  And  the  earth  brought 
forth^^  etc.     Here  are  two  distinct  things  —  the  going 


196       HEBREW  WORDS  OF  PRODUCTION. 

forth  of  the  Divine  Omnific  Word,  as  in  the  other  crea- 
tive periods,  and  the  productive  power,  energy,  or  ener- 
gising of  the  earth.  This  latter  is  expressed  by  two 
different,  yet  kindred  Hebrew  verbs.  One  of  them,  Ntt;n, 
means  properly  to  germinate,  (Greek,  ^Xatfrvja'ai, —  Vul- 
gate, gei^minare,')  to  bud,  or  to  sprout,  as  in  Joel,  ii,  22. 
''  For  the  pastures  of  the  wilderness  do  spring,  the  tree 
beareth  fruit ;  the  fig  tree  and  the  vine  do  yield  their 
strength," — (B^QXadT-rixsv  ra  liB^la  —  Quia  germinaverunt 
speciosa  deserti.  There  it  is  applied  in  Kal  to  the  plant. 
Here  in  Hiphil,  it  has  for  its  subject  the  earth, — "  Let 
the  earth  germinate,  or  cause  to  germinate.''^  It  is  the 
causal  or  causative  conjugation,  and  although  we  would 
not  attach  much  importance  to  this  standing  alone  and 
unsupported  by  the  context,  yet  in  the  connection  in 
which  we  here  find  it,  it  is  certainly  worthy  of  note.  The 
other  Hebrew  word  means  precisely  what  the  English 
does,  to  come  forth,  and  in  the  Hiphil  conjugation  which 
is  here  used,  to  cause  to  come  forth,  or  out,  to  bring  forth 
—  to  give  birth  to,  nasei  facer e,  or  cause  to  he  horn, 
which  is  the  special  sense  it  has.  Job,  x,  18,  Isaiah,  Ixv, 
9,  and  other  places.  The  earth  then  was  not  a  mere 
passive  recipient,  nor  was  production  by  it  a  mere  outward 
unessential  mode,  having  no  other  than  an  arbitrary 
connection  with  the  Divine  working,  or  employed  merely 
as  an  accompanying  sign ;  but  the  earth  exerts  a  real 
causative  power,  and  this  becomes  an  essential  and  im- 
portant part  in  the  chain  of  causation  which  God  saw  fit 
to  originate  and  estabhsh.  The  Divine  power  was  exerted, 
but  it  was  upon  the  earth,  and  through  the  earth.  It 
was  upon  the  nature  and  through  the  nature  that  had 
become  established  in  the  previous  creative  acts,  whilst, 


A    NEW  THING  IN  NATURE.  197 

at  the  same  time,  there  is  the  beginning  of  a  new  energy 
imparted  to  this  nature  which  it  did  not  possess  before. 
The  command  is  to  the  earth;  but  the  earth  is  not 
passive.  She  exerts  an  active  obedience  in  the  exercise 
of  the  old  nature  modified  by  the  new  force  which  comes 
from  the  supernatural  Omnific  Word  going  forth,  as  it 
previously  did  for  the  separation  of  the  light  from  the 
chaos  and  the  waters  from  the  waters.  Before,  it  was 
said,  "  Let  there  be  light,"  and  now  again,  Let  there  he 
life  —  and  life  began  to  be.  As  in  all  the  other  periods, 
so  here  there  was  doubtless  the  instantaneous  beginning 
of  a  new,  and,  at  first,  supernatural  force  put  into  nature. 
Vegetable  life  had  a  moment  when  it  began  to  be, —  a 
new  thing  upon  the  earth,  unborn  and  undeveloped  out 
of  anything  previously  existing.  The  earth,  by  any 
natural  power  previously  imparted,  or  previously  exer- 
cised, would  never  have  produced  it ;  but  then,  when  the 
new  energy  is  imparted,  the  mode,  or  law  of  production, 
is  through  the  earth. 

This  work  might  have  been  direct  and  instantaneous  ; 
and  there  would  have  been  no  difficulty  in  believing  such 
a  declaration,  had  it  been  made.  Reason  has  no  diffi- 
culty in  admitting  the  supernatural.  The  devout  mind 
loves  to  believe  it  when  clearly  revealed,  and  is  ever 
most  fond  of  those  parts  of  the  Bible  in  which  it  is  most 
boldly  set  forth.  It  loves  to  read  how  nature,  ever  so 
obedient  to  her  Lord,  is  sometimes  commanded  to  stand 
away  from  His  Presence.  It  loves  to  read  how  God 
came  down  on  Sinai,  and  Christ  rose  in  the  clouds  before 
the  gaze  of  the  wondering  disciples.  But  here  the  lan- 
guage just  as  clearly  conveys  the  idea  of  a  natural  pro- 
cess, or  going  on,  after  a  supernatural  origin.     The 

17* 


19b        A  NATUKAL  PROCESS  IMPLIED. 

germination,  the  bringing  forth,  the  growth,  the  seeding^ 
the  yielding,  each  after  its  kind,  implying  previous  types, 
laws,  or  ideas,  according  to  which  they  grew, — all  this 
has  the  appearance  of  a  natural  process.  It  is  a  nature^ 
a  being  horn,  if  we  can  attach  any  meaning  to  such  a 
word,  and  to  suppose  all  evolved  by  a  rapid  crowding  of 
causalities  into  a  period  equal  to  one  of  our  present  solar 
days,  is  not  to  maintain  the  supernatural,  but  the  unnatu- 
ral. Strange  as  this  would  be,  still  if  it  were  the  fair 
meaning  of  the  language,  we  would  not  hesitate  to  yield 
to  it  any  opposing  hypothesis,  however  cherished ;  for 
we  have  no  other  guide  here  than  the  Scriptures.  With 
all  reverence,  however,  and  with  every  caution  lest  we 
might  be  in  the  wrong,  must  we  say,  that  such  a  pro- 
ceeding would  appear  to  be  neither  nature  nor  miracle. 
It  would  seem  to  lack  what  we  must  regard  as  the  most 
essential  features  of  the  one,  whilst  it  vfould  have  only 
an  unreal  semblance  of  the  other, 

A  few  distinctions  and  definitions  may  be  needed  here 
to  place  this  subject  in  a  clearer  light.  The  only  idea 
we  have  of  nature  is  that  of  a  regular,  constant  flow  of 
cause  and  effect  governed  bv  established  laws  operat- 
ing uniformly,  or  ever  in  the  same  manner  under  the 
same  circumstances,  and  with  the  same  accompaniments. 
Phenomenally,  it  is  a  continual  coming  out,  growth, 
((putfiff,)  or  hirth  of  one  thing  from  another,  or  as  its  ety- 
mology imports,  a  being  horn,  Qnatura,)  or  a  heing  about 
to  he  horn,  from  something  that  has  gone  before,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  a  giving  birth  to  something  which  is  to 
follow.  We  cannot  conceive  of  it  except  as  having  had 
a  beginning  at  some  time,  and  from  something  out  of 
itself.     From  the  necessity,  therefore,  of  our  laws  of 


IDEA   OF  NATURE.  199 

thinking,  as  well  as  from  revelation,  we  say,  that  it  is  a 
power  given  originally  by  God.  But  though  thus  ori- 
ginated, we  can  distinctly  conceive  of  it  as  a  nature  only 
when  we  regard  it  as  in  some  manner  left  to  itself,  and 
operating  by  its  own  laws  or  methods.  How  this  should 
be  we  cannot  understand ;  and  yet  we  must  adopt  some 
distinction  of  fact  between  the  prime  originating  super- 
natural energy  and  the  subsequent  ongoing,  or  we 
resolve  God  into  nature  and  nature  into  God, —  thus  run- 
ning into  atheism  on  the  one  hand,  or  an  equally  godless 
pantheism  on  the  other  We  may  suppose  this  original 
divine  force  ever  present  as  the  supporting  ground,  but 
not  im-manent  or  per-manent  as  the  immediate  causal 
force  in  every  natural  effect.  We  must  believe  that 
God  is  able  to  impart  such  a  natural  power,  and  leave  it, 
in  this  sense,  to  itself, —  thus  making  it  something  differ- 
ent from  the  immediate  divine  energy.  Those  who  hold, 
with  Malbranche,  and  others,  that  there  is  ever  the  im- 
manent divine  presence  in  every  act  of  nature,  do,  in 
fact,  diminish,  instead  of  magnifying,  the  divine  power 
and  dignity.  It  is  simply  maintaining  that  God  cannot 
make  a  nature,  and  hence,  of  course,  that  there  is  no- 
thing supernatural,  because,  in  fact,  there  is  nothing 
truly  natural.  It  is  unmeaning,  too,  and  absurd,  since  it 
supposes  media  which  are,  in  truth,  no  media,  but  only 
arbitrary  signs,  having  no  dynamical  connection  with 
the  effects.  Nature,  in  this  view,  would  be  as  irrational 
as  a  machinery  having  all  the  appearance  of  mediate 
dynamical  causation,  and  yet  requiring  the  constant 
application  of  the  original  motive  force  directly  to  every 
wheel,  and  cog,  and  strap,  in  the  complicated  structure. 


200  DIFFERENT   KINDS    OP   NATURES. 

Holding  nature  thus  to  be,  in  some  sense,  a  self-sub- 
sisting, self-acting  power,  we  may  next  regard  it  in  its 
extent  and  its  degree.  It  may  be  the  universal  nature, 
that  is,  the  whole  nature  of  the  universe  in  all  its  con- 
nected and  interdependent  organization  as  one  great 
force  developing  itself  by  laws  which  God  has  given  it. 
Or  it  may  be  a  partial  nature,  such,  for  example,  as  the 
nature  of  the  earth,  or  of  some  still  less  organism,  such  as 
that  of  a  tree,  or  an  animal,  developing  itself  by  its  own 
internal  law,  as  modified  by  its  connection  with  the  uni- 
versal. Again,  in  respect  to  degree.  There  may  be  an 
inchoate,  an  imperfect,  or  rudimentary  nature,  which  is 
preparatory  to  some  higher  stage ;  which  higher  stage 
will  be  generated,  not  through  any  unaided  development 
of  the  old,  but  by  the  supernatural  interposition,  when  the 
old  or  lower  nature  has  prepared  the  way  for  the  new 
Word  and  the  new  Presence.  Again.  Every  nature, 
whether  of  the  whole  or  a  part,  whether  inchoate  or 
advanced,  must  be  finite.  There  are  limits  to  its  work- 
ing which  it  cannot  pass ;  there  is  a  height  above  which 
it  cannot  rise.  The  one  ground  power,  and  the  from 
time  to  time  superadded  powers,  if  there  are  such,  can 
only  develop  themselves  to  a  certain  degree  which  is 
their  maximum.  When  this  is  arrived  at,  the  nature 
must  do  one  of  three  things.  It  must  either  stop  entirely, 
or  go  on  unlimitedly  at  the  maximum  development  and 
in  the  same  plane,  —  which  we  think  we  could  show  to 
be  impossible, — or  it  must  return  and  continually  repeat 
itself  in  an  ever  waxing  and  waning  cycle.  But  it  can 
never,  of  itself,  get  above  the  original  force  as  controlled 
by  the  original  finite  law. 


CONTINUITY  IN  NATURE.  201 

In  every  nature,  too,  regarded  bj  itself,  'there  must 
be  continuity.  The  mind  demands  this  as  involved  in 
the  very  idea  of  a  nature.  There  can  be^  within  it  no 
discrete  degrees.  Its  law  can  have  no  leaps  ;  it  must  be 
an  iinhrohen  law,  or  law  of  continuity.  Every  effect,  or 
out-working,  must  have  something  in  common  with  the 
cause  which  precedes  it,  and  out  of  which  it  flows,  or 
which  may  be  also  said  to  flow  into  it.  Hence,  however 
it  may  seem  to  change,  such  change  is  only  the  outward 
growth  of  the  cause  varying  in  manner  and  degree  as  it 
proceeds  from  its  latent  to  its  phenomenal  state.  This 
is  the  law  of  each  several  nature  within  its  own  bounds. 
But  beyond  these  bounds,  the  different  natures,  or  the 
different  scales,  must  be  parted  from  each  other  by  dis- 
crete supernatural  beginnings.  The  continuity  from 
nature  to  nature  is  severed  by  impassable  chasms.  Thus 
we  may  say  of  the  ascending  degrees,  inert  matter,  motion, 
organic  growth  proceeding  from  within,  outward  self-mo- 
tion or  locomotion,  mere  animation,  appetite,  choice,  the 
rational  will,  and  rationality  itself;  they  are  all  distinct 
from  each  other ;  they  never  can  come  out  of,  or  be  born, 
(nata,  naturata,  yiyvo^sva^')  that  is,  proceed  naturally  horn 
each  other.  So  says  the  revelation  which  God  has  made  to 
us  in  the  laws  of  our  own  minds,  and  by  which  we  inter- 
pret the  revelation  He  has  made  to  us  in  nature.  By 
these  laws  of  our  thinking  it  is  made  impossible  for  us  to 
conceive  of  one  of  these  states  being  the  other,  or  being 
involved  in  the  other.  They  are  parted  by  chasms, 
across  Avhich  no  mere  nature  can  ever  leap.  Any  other 
supposition  would  involve  a  war  of  ideas,  or  the  contra- 
diction which  our  scientific  naturalists  are  sometimes  so 
fond  of  using, —  ex  nihilo  niJiil — nothing  can  ever  come 


202  CHASMS   BETWEEN   NATURES. 

from  nothing.  It  is  just  as  certain,  too,  that  more  can 
never  come  from  less. 

To  apply  this,  then,  we  may  say,  that  the  old  nature 
existing  in  the  earth  previous  to  the  destined  period, 
could  never  have  produced  the  first  dawning  of  vegetable 
life.  It  could  not  have  given  birth  to  the  lowest  fungus. 
We  infer  this,  too,  not  merely  from  our  sensible  know- 
ledge of  nature's  phenomena,  or  our  reasoning  about  her 
potentialities,  but  from  the  express  revelation  of  the  fact, 
that  here  the  Divine  creative  Word  again  goes  forth. 
Had  the  development  been  wrapped  up  in  the  previous 
nature,  there  would  have  been  no  need  of  this,  and 
therefore,  no  distinct  creative  day  or  period  for  the  work. 

Again.  Nature  must  not  only  be  finite  in  extent,  and 
degree  of  its  power,  but  must  have  a  certain  duration 
as  viewed  by  the  finite  mind.  It  is  only  comprehensible 
to  us  as  a  floiv  or  succession.  To  the  Deity,  as  Vr'e  have 
said  before,  all  the  effects,  or  as  we  may  more  properly 
say,  the  tvliole  effect  is  in  the  cause.  And  since  to  Him 
—  with  all  reverence  would  we  venture  the  opinion  — 
powers  and  potencies  are  the  higher  realities,  it  is  all 
affectum,  all  done,  all  completed  or  summed  in  the  ori- 
ginal causative  energy ;  and  hence,  speaking  more  lai- 
mano,  may  we  say,  that  to  Him  it  is  instantaneous.  To 
us,  although  we  know  that  the  flow  of  a  nature  must  be 
continuous,  and  that  every  effect  must  be  in  the  cause, 
and  ever  coming  out  of  the  cause,  yet  still  must  it  pre- 
sent (to  our  finite  sense  at  least)  the  appearance  of  steps 
or  degrees.  Hence,  too,  for  us,  to  whom  the  phenomenal 
are  the  realities,  or  the  nearest  realities,  nature  must 
have  succession,  and  succession  for  finite  minds  is  dura- 
tion longer  or  shorter  in  its  seeming,  according  to  the 


PLOVf   OR   SUCCESSION  IN  NATURE.  203 

manner,  or  number,  or  apparent  separation  of  succes- 
sive events  (or  out-comings)  as  they  present  them- 
selves like  points  on  which  the  eye  can  rest  in  the  steady 
flowing  stream. 

If  any  one  ask, —  Why  does  God  work  in  this  way? 
what  need  has  he  of  natures  ?  We  can  only  say,  "  So 
it  seemeth  good  in  his  sight."  He  could  doubtless  have 
made  all  things  differently,  but  then  we  know  it  would 
not  have  been  the  best  way,  because  He  has  not  adopted 
it.  He  works  through  nature,  or  a  succession  of  natures, 
no  one  developing  another,  yet  each  preparing  the  way 
for  the  one  that  is  to  succeed.  We  see  enough  of  the 
universe  to  know  that  this  is  the  method,  and  thus 
considered,  the  general  view  is  unaffected  by  the  mea- 
sure of  dura,tion.  It  is  of  no  importance  to  the  argu- 
ment, whether  the  flow  seem  more  or  less  rapid  as 
viewed  from  our  stand-point,  or  as  measured  by  the 
shorter  periods  of' that  exactly  divided  physical  system 
to  which  our  thinking,  that  is,  our  flow  of  ideas,  has 
become  conformed.  It  is  still  the  same  great  princii^le, 
whether  it  appears  in  the  growth  of  the  fungus,  the 
"  son  of  a  night,"  in  the  growth  of  the  plant  that  lives 
for  years,  in  the  growth  of  a  tree  that  endures  for  centu- 
ries, in  the  growth  of  worlds  whose  cyclical  law  extends 
through  geons  or  ages,  embracing  a  duration  equal,  per- 
haps, to  millenial  or  miUio-millenial  recurrences  of  such 
cycles  as  are  made  by  our  exact  sun-measured  years. 
It  is  the  great  principle  for  which  we  contend  ;  and  this 
established,  it  certainly  ought  to  guide  us  in  our  inter- 
pretations of  a  record  which  professes  to  reveal  the  cre- 
ative acts  of  God. 


204 

If  we  thus  view  nature  as  a  stream  of  causation  gov- 
erned by  a  certain  law  which  not  only  regulates  but 
limits  its  movements,  then  the  supernatural,  as  its  name 
imports,  would  be  all  above  nature^ — in  other  words, 
that  power  of  God  which  is  employed  "  according  to  the 
counsel  of  his  own  will"  in  originating,  controlling,  limit- 
ing, increasing,  opposing,  or  terminating  nature,  whether 
it  be  the  universal  or  any  particular  or  partial  nature. 
Thus  regarded,  the  supernatural  would  assume  various 
aspects  to  which  we  may  give  distinctive  names.  As 
originating  nature,  we  may  call  it  the  ante-natural.  As 
adding  a  new  force  to  a  previously  existing  nature,  it 
may  be  styled  praeter-natural^  although  there  are  some 
uses  of  the  word  that  might  vary  from  this  idea.  If 
such  new  power,  though  higher  than  the  previous  nature, 
is  in  harmony  with  it,  and  works  through  it,  thus  pro- 
ducing a  higher  order  of  results,  though  still  through  it 
and  by  it,  then  it  may  be  named  the  con-natural, —  since, 
in  this  manner,  in  connection  with  the  old,  it  truly  be- 
co  i:es  itself  a  new  nature.  When  the  Divine  power  is 
in  immediate  and  direct  opposition  to  nature,  breaking 
through  its  laws,  and  producing  events  the  opposite  of 
what  would  have  come  out  of  its  unobstructed  sequences, 
then  may  we  rightly  call  it  the  contra-natural — such  as 
are  those  interpositions  that  are  generally  termed  mira- 
culous. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  still,  which  we  would 
attempt  to  define,  although  it  does  not  fall  in  so  readily 
with  our  laws  of  thinking  as  the  others,  and  may,  there- 
fore, appear  to  involve  inconsistencies.  There  may  be 
the  conception  of  a  supernatural  power  working  through 
a  nature,  or  said  thus  to  work  through  it,  (as  far  as  Ian- 


THE  UN-NATURAL.  205 

guage  can  convey  such  an  idea,)  and  yet  in  opposition 
to  it,  or  in  a  manner  which  is  not  in  harmony  with  it, — 
or,  in  other  words,  without  any  regard  to  the  laws,  or 
successions  of  time,  or  orderly  phenomenal  manifestations 
of  that  previous  nature  through  which  it  is  said  thus  to 
work.     This  may  be  called  not  the  supra-natural,  or  the 
contra-natural,  or  the  con-natural,  but  the  un-natural. 
It  is  not  the  supra-natural  strictly,  for  it  is  expressly  said 
to  work  through  an  existing  nature.     We  mean,  it  is  not 
the  supernatural  in  its  method  of  operation,  although  it 
may  be  such  in  its  origin.     On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not 
nature  ;  for  it  is  at  war  with  the  settled  processes  of  her 
ongoing.     This,  then,  is  the  epithet  by  which  we  must 
characterize  the  work  of  the  third  and  fifth  days,  if  we 
attempt  to  reconcile  the  Bible  language  to  the  idea  of  a 
(p'o'j?,  or  natura^  that  is  of  a  birth  and  growth  out  of  the 
earth  of  all  plants,  herbs,  trees,  etc.,  (^from  the  seminal 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  natural  increment,^  by  an 
energizing  process  in  the  earth  and  through  the  earth,  and 
yet  all  in  the  duration  of  one  solar  day.     The  objection 
is  not  to  the  supernatural,  or  to  the  idea  of  marvellous 
rapidity  in  itself  considered,  but  to  the  un-naturalness 
of  the  proceeding.     It  is  the  seeming  nature  implied  in 
the  language,  but  which,  instead  of  being  really  such,  is 
at  war  with  all  the  ideas  that  the  laws  of  our  mind  com- 
pel us  to  associate  with  the  word  natural.     The  best 
name  for  it  would  be  found  in  that  strange  term,  magical, 
as  indicative  of  some  incomprehensible  as  well  as  incon- 
ceivable process  with  which  we  cannot  connect  the  idea 
either  of  law  or  miracle. 

Here,  then,  comes  up  clearly  and  strongly  the  point 
we  would  wish  to  present.     We  must  not  take  words 

IS 


206  PARTURITIVE  POWERS   OF  THE  EARTH, 

out  of  tlieir  ordinary  use,  it  is  said.  This  is  the  whole 
length  and  strength  of  the  objection.  Day  means  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  so  all  minds  understand  it.  But  cer- 
tainly the  Hebrew  word  yojii  does  not  so  inseparably 
carry  with  it  the  conception  of  a  certain  unvarying  short 
duration,  as  the  terms  of  birth  and  growth  here  applied 
to  the  nutritive  and  parturitive  action  of  the  earth  connect 
themselves  with  the  ideas  of  a  longer  duration.  If  we  can- 
not separate  the  word  day  from  the  thought  of  twenty-four 
of  our  present  hours,  then,  a  fortiori  atque  a  fortissimo, 
do  we  say,  that  we  cannot  separate  such  a  process  as  the 
growth  of  a  plant,  or  of  a  tree,  through  all  the  regular 
sequences,  such  as  the  germination,  the  parturition,  the 
growth,  the  seeding,  the  ripening,  etc.,  from  the  concep- 
tion of  a  season,  to  say  the  least,  or  many  seasons.  To 
admit  the  process,  and  yet  deny  the  associated  period  of 
duration,  or  that  it  had  the  successive  steps,  is  a  war  of 
ideas,  as  well  as  of  language. 

We  are  not  told  that  the  parturitive  powers  of  the 
earth,  when  they  first  began  to  be  exercised,  were  very- 
different  from  what  they  are  now.  They  may  have  been 
more  rapid,  or  more  slow ;  but  if  it  was  a  real  physical 
energy  governed  by  law,  and  not  merely  an  arbitrary 
sign  of  a  contra-natural  power,  it  must,  at  least,  have 
had  a  harmony  in  its  workings,  such  a  harmony  as  would 
have  required  that  the  widely  varying  among  its  diversi- 
fied effects  should  bear  some  ratio  to  the  greater  strength 
or  longer  duration  in  the  cause.  It  would  not  have 
brought  out  the  full-formed,  full-grown,  and  ripened  cedar 
of  Lebanon,  in  the  same  time  it  required  for  giving  birth 
to  the  mushroom.  No  intimation  is  given  that  the  first 
growth,  after  the  instantaneous  starting  power,  or  the 


FIKST   GROWTHS  NATURAL.  207 

utterance  of  the  creative  Word,  was  not  as  natural  as 
as  any  that  followed.  We  are  the  rather  led  to  beheve 
that  this  first  growth  gave  the  law  to  all  subsequent  pro- 
duction. If  the  first  plants  or  trees  did  not  come  from 
a  pre^dous  organized  seed,  the  first  seeds,  at  all  events, 
grew  out  of  the  plant,  and  as  far  as  the  language  gives  us 
any  idea,  in  a  similar  manner,  and  by  a  similar  law,  and 
in  a  corresponding  time,  or  succession  of  times,  to  that 
which  regulated  any  subsequent  seeding,  or  ripening,  or 
fructification  of  the  parent  organism. 

Did  the  writer  of  the  creative  history  think  of  anything 
but  a  natural  growth,  originated,  it  is  true,  by  a  Divine 
power,  but  still  a  natural  growth  with  all  its  successive 
steps  and  changes?  Yes,  the  objector  may  say, — he 
must  have  thought  so  to  be  consistent  with  his  other  idea 
of  a  day  of  twenty-four  hours.  But  with  how  much  force 
may  this  be  turned  the  other  way.  Moses  does  speaTi 
of  growth;  all  the  terms  employed  are  consistent  with 
such  an  idea;  the  more  we  examine  into  their  very 
roots,  the  more  does  this  (pj(fig  generation,  or  nature 
appear,  and,  therefore,  we  say,  he  was  not  limited,  and 
did  not  consider  himself  limited,  by  any  such  notion  of 
time  as  our  interpreters  would  force  upon  him. 

To  get  away  from  this,  we  must  say,  that  it  was  not  a 
growth^  a  natui^e,  a  genesis, — for  all  these  terms  are 
synonymous.  But  what  was  it,  then  ?  What  possible 
meaning  in  the  strange  procedure  ?  Had  we  been  told, 
that  instantly,  by  the  Divine  fiat,  the  earth  was  covered 
with  vegetation  of  the  largest  and  most  perfect  kind,  that 
in  a  moment  there  stood  forth  in  all  their  physical  perfec- 
tion the  "  creeping  hyssop,"  the  rose  of  Sharon,  and  the 
waving  cedar  of  Lebanon,  that  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye, 


208  NOT  PRODUCED   IN   SUDDEN  MATURITY. 

from  being  a  barren,  inanimate,  and  solitary  waste,  our 
world  was  swarming  with  animals  of  every  size  and  spe- 
cies, full  grown,  and  at  the  maximum  of  their  strength 
and  beauty,  there  would  have  been  no  a  priori  diffi- 
culty in  believing  it.  There  would  have  been  nothing 
irrational  or  incredible  in  the  account.  Such  an  instan- 
taneous production  would  have  been  in  harmony  with  all 
our  ideas  of  the  Divine  power  and  dignity.  But  it  has 
not  been  so  revealed.  A  different  method  was  taken  by 
the  Divine  Wisdom, —  the  method  to  which  we  give  the 
name  of  nature, —  the  method  of  growth,  of  succession, 
of  duration,  of  the  apparent  birth  of  one  thing  out  of 
another,  and  this,  too,  through  the  action  of  a  previous 
nature  quickened  by  a  new  Word  into  a  new  energy, 
and  to  the  development  of  a  new  law.  Both  these  sup- 
positions, we  say,  are  rational,  both  are  pious,  both  are 
credible  if  clearly  revealed. 

But  there  are  other  hypotheses  which  are  not  rational, 
which  are  not  credible,  which  do  not  enhance  our  ideas 
of  the  Divine  dignity,  or  the  glory  of  the  creative  work, 
and  which  are,  moreover,  most  difficult  to  reconcile  with 
any  fair  interpretation  of  the  Biblical  language.  One  is, 
that  the  trees  and  animals  were  formed  directly  by  the 
hand  of  God,  and  then  placed  in  the  earth  that  it  might 
bring  them  forth,  or  be  said  to  bring  them  forth,  thus 
perfectly  formed.  Another  is,  that  by  the  same  direct 
divine  power,  they  were  formed  in  the  earth,  but  not 
through  any  natural  agency  of  the  earth ;  the  formative 
act,  not  being  a  nature,  or  a  growth,  but  as  far  as  the 
earth  was  concerned,  outward,  mechanical,  or  magical ; 
and  even  the  hringing  forth  being  by  no  natural  power 
acting   through   any  previous,  or   then   imparted   law. 


FALSE   CAUSATION,   THE  LEGENDARY.  209 

Another  is,  that  the  seeds  of  vegetables  were  formed  per- 
fect by  direct  Divine  power,  and  then  planted  in  the 
earth.  But  all  have  this  feature.  They  present  the 
appearance  of  a  causation  which  is  not  a  causation. 
They  are  forced  ideas  which  come  from  a  supposed 
exigentia  loci,  and  not  from  any  fair  and  harmonious 
interpretation  of  language.  They  seem  unworthy  of  the 
Divine  character.  With  all  reverence  be  it  said,  they 
have  not  the  dignity  of  the  instantaneous  act  which 
demands  no  appearance  of  any  accompanying  media, 
whilst  they  lack  the  beautiful  consistency  of  a  true  nature. 
Even  the  last  escapes  the  difficulty  no  better  than  the 
others.  The  seed  is  as  much  an  organism  as  the  plant  or 
tree, — far  more  so  than  the  bark,  or  branch,  or  root.  It 
has  the  same  appearance  of  growth,  or  of  having  grown 
from  a  younger  state ;  it  suggests  the  same  idea  of  suc- 
cession, or  natural  process.  Divine  Omnipotence  could 
make  them,  doubtless ;  but  so,  also,  it  could  have  made 
the  perfect  tree  or  animal.  It  is  liable,  therefore,  to  the 
same  charge  of  unmeaningness,  of  inconsistency,  of 
apparent  fallacy,  of  having  neither  the  reason  of  the 
supernatural,  nor  the  law  of  the  natural. 

We  may  say,  moreover,  of  them  all,  that  they  have 
too  much  the  look  of  the  legendary,  the  peculiarities  of 
which  are,  not  the  marvellous,  the  supernatural — these 
may  enter  into  the  most  sober  and  rational  narrative  — 
but  the  dreamy,  the  fantastic,  the  grotesque,  the  unmean- 
ing violation  of  all  the  unities,or  all  the  harmonies,  of  time, 
place,  and  causation.  From  such  distorted  traditions  of 
the  passage  came  probably  the  gross  fancies  of  some  of 
the  old  Ionic  philosophers  as  we  find  them  set  forth  in 
the  verses  of  Lucretius ;  only  there  the  grotesque  work 

18* 


210  THE  GROTESQUE,  MILTON'S  PICTURE. 

is  ascribed  to  an  unnatural  nature,  not  to  God.  Hence, 
too,  Milton's  picture,  which,  although  merely  poetical, 
presents  probably  the  conception  that  has  been  most 
common  among  a  certain  class  of  interpreters  who  would 
make  the  twenty-four  hour  rule  the  one  to  which  every 
thing  else  in  reason,  nature,  and  language,  must  conform. 
Even  as  a  picture  it  is  unnatural.  It  is  like  some  of  the 
inartistic  drawings  on  the  old  tapestries,  where  every 
thmg  stands  right  out  m  the  foreground  without  shade 
or  perspective. 

"  The  earth  obeyed ;  and  straight 
Opening  her  fertile  womb,  teemed  at  a  birth 
Innumerous  living  creatures,  perfect  forms, 
Limb'd  and  full  grown.     Out  of  the  ground  uprose 
As  from  his  lair  the  wild  beast,  where  he  wona 
In  forest  wild,  in  thicket,  brake,  or  den. 
Among  the  trees  in  pairs  they  rose,  they  walked  ; 
The  cattle  in  the  fields  and  meadows  green 
Those  rare  and  solitaiy,  these  in  flocks, 
Pasturing  at  once,  and  in  broad  herds  upsprung. 
The  grassy  clods  now  calved  ;  now  half  appeared 
The  taiony  lion  pawing  to  get  free 
His  hinder  parts,  then  springs  as  broke  from  bonds, 
And  rampant  shakes  his  brinded  main :  the  ounce. 
The  libbard,  and  the  tiger,  as  the  mole 
Rising,  the  crumbled  earth  above  them  threw 
In  hillocks  :  the  swift  stag  from  under  ground 
Bore  up  his  branching  head ;  scarce  from  his  mould 
Behemoth,  biggest  born  of  earth,  upheaved 
Hi«  vastness." 

In  setting  forth  the  suddenness  of  the  work  as  a  supposed 
exhibition  of  the  divine  omnipotence,  Milton  is  truly  sub 
lime;  but  in  attempting  to  connect  the  earth  with  the 
animal  productions,  as  he  was  led  to  do  by  his  view  of 
the  passage,  he  descends  to  the  grotesque  and  even  to 
the  ludicrous.  That  image  of  the  tawny  lion  patving  to 
get  free  his  hinder  parts,  and  of  Behemoth  upheaving 
the  earth  under  which  he  is  buried,  like  a  mole  coming 


DIGNITY  OP  THE  BIBLE  ACCOUNT.      211 

out  of  the  ground,  falls  in  dignity,  we  must  say  it,  beneath 
the  wildest  Greek  conceptions  of  earth-born  Typhons, 
centaurs, 

"  Oorgons,  hydras,  and  chimaeras  dire." 

We  would  speak  with  reverence  of  what  to  any  minds 
might  seem  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  Scriptures ;  but 
could  this  sense  have  been  intended  ?  Wild  as  the  Greek 
fables  are,  there  is  some  meaning  and  method  in  their 
grotesque  fancies.  Centaurs  may  have  been  the  produc- 
tion of  some  law  of  nature,  or  they  may  have  been  direct 
divine  creations  intended  to  subserve  some  wise  purpose 
in  the  chronological  developments  of  our  world.  There  is 
nothing  in  either  supposition  that  can  be  called  irrational. 
But  the  emerging  of  lions  and  behemoths  out  of  the 
earth,  when  the  earth,  after  all,  has  nothing  to  do  with 
their  generation,  no  natural  connection  with  their  former 
tion  or  their  growth,  would  seem  to  be,  not  merely  wild 
or  grotesque,  but  absurd,  not  merely  marvelous,  but 
unmeaning.  It  would  also  be  a  deception.  It  would 
present  the  appearance  of  a  nature  where  there  is  none 
in  reaUty ;  it  would  give  us  the  seeming  of  law  where 
there  is  no  dynamical  connection,  and  where  the  associ- 
ated sequences,  even  if  we  would  regard  them  merely  as 
signs,  are  significant  of  no  intelligible  purpose  or  idea. 

But  when  we  take  the  passage  in  its  whole  connection 
it  has  nothing  of  this  grotesque  or  legendary  aspect. 
The  impression  it  produces  is  one  of  gravest  dignity. 
In  its  general  effect,  and  still  more  in  the  conceptions 
which  lie  at  the  roots  of  its  most  important  terms,  it 
forces  upon  the  mind  the  idea  of  a  nature  in  the  earth 
acting  through  a  real  dynamical  process  of  its  own,  and 
in  periods,  which,  whether  longer  or  shorter,  contain 


212  GROWTH  FROM   THE  EARTH. 

within  themselves  all  the  changes  and  successive  stages 
which  we  find  it  impossible  to  dissociate  from  the  thought 
of  birth  and  growth.  And  this,  too,  of  the  animal  as 
well  as  of  the  vegetable  worlds.  There  is  no  more  diffi- 
culty in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other.  One  may  be 
higher  than  the  other ;  but  both,  we  are  plainly  taught 
m  the  Scriptures,  are  products  of  nature  and  matter  act- 
ing through  laws  and  energies  quickened  to  a  higher 
work  by  a  new  command  and  a  new  Presence  of  the 
Creative  Word. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


WORK    OF   THE   FIFTH  DAY. 

Gbowth  from  the  earth.— Was  it  a  growth  of  individuals  or  of  spb 
ciES  ? — Either  view  may  be  piously  held. — The  Acari  insects  and  Mr. 
Cross. — Nature  a  stream. — A  supernatural  seed  dropped  into  it. — 
How  did  the  first  plants  grow? — The  first  animals. — Hebrew  words 
employed. — We  must  keep  close  to  the  record. — The  great  whales. 
— Science  can  trace  footsteps  but  tell  us  nothing  of  origin. 

When  we  are  once  led  to  admit  that  the  work  of  the 
third  and  of  the  fifth  period  was  through  such  a  process  as 
we  may  fairlj  call  nature,  or  the  natural,  we  may  regard 
ourselves  as  having  the  simple  conception  as  it  lay  in  the 
mind  of  the  writer,  and  the  question  of  longer  or  shorter 
duration  becomes  one  altogether  of  secondary  conse- 
quence. All  that  is  required  is  that  the  idea  of  time 
and  its  successions  be  not  out  of  harmony  with  the  main 
thought.  Exact  measures,  of  course,  are  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, but  we  can  say  generally,  that  in  harmonizing  the 
conception  it  is  the  work  must  measure  the  day,  and  not 
the  day  the  work.  Both,  we  think,  can  be  preserved  in 
perfect  consistency,  but  if  either  is  to  be  favored  in  our 
minds  at  the  expense  of  the  other,  duration  is  the  second- 
ary idea.  The  causality  must  expand  the  time  instead 
of  being  limited  by  it,  or  crowded  into  unnatural  dimen- 
sions while  assuming  to  be  a  natural  process. 

Our  views,  however,  of  such  duration  would  be  modi- 
fied in  no  sHght  degree,  according  as  we  adopt  one  or  the 


214  INDIVIDUALS   OR  SPECIES? 

other  of  two  theories  of  growth  or  development.  Assum- 
ing that  there  was  a  real  nature,  or  production  out  of 
the  earth,  the  question  might  still  be  raised, —  was  it  a 
growth,  in  the  first  place,  of  individuals  or  of  species.  The 
one  conception  is  connected  in  our  minds  with  years  and 
seasons  made  up  of  the  lesser  diurnal  cycles,  the  other 
with  ages,  or  seonic  cycles  of  cycles,  the  olams  and  seons 
of  the  Bible,  or  the  great  years  (the  magni  anni)  of  the 
philosophical  imagination.  In  the  one  case  we  must 
suppose  the  Divine  Word  energizing  in  as  many  specific 
acts,  or  beginnings,  as  there  are  species  of  vegetable  and 
animal  life.  Each  species  or  genus  is  a  separate  sper- 
matic word  Qi'UB^^arwjg  'koyog)  or,  at  least,  a  separate  and 
distinct  energizing  of  the  one  Universal  Word.  In  the 
other  view,  the  original  divine  power  may  be  supposed  to 
have  originated  the  new  order  of  life  in  its  most  generic 
or  universal  germ,  and  all  subordinate  genera  and  species 
may  have  been  developed  from  it,  and  from  each  other,  by 
the  action  of  nature  under  this  new  power,  and  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  new  law,  or  the  new  modification  of  previous 
law,  thus  and  then  imparted  to  it.  In  this  way  species 
would  grow  out  of  species,  as  individuals  out  of  individu- 
als. There  would  be  an  ascent  from  the  first  rudiments 
of  vegetable  and  animal  life  to  the  higher  and  more  per- 
fect growths^  or  natures.  It  would  be  the  same  ivonl 
repeating,  yet  expanding,  itself  in  every  ascending  spe- 
cies, just  as  it  is  the  same  specific  word  repeating  itself 
in  every  individual  birth  which  the  laws  of  the  maternal 
nature  are  ever  bringing  out  from  the  seminal  energy. 

What  science  would  say  to  this  we  do  not  clearly 
know,  nor  are  we  much  concerned  about  her  decisions. 
An  immense  time,  as  well  as  an  immense  accumulation 


NO  FEAR  OF  NATURALISM.  215 

of  data,  are  required  to  give  them  any  claim  upon  our 
confidence.  Neither,  on  the  other  hand,  if  it  be  most  in 
harmony  with  the  language  of  the  Bible,  would  we  be 
concerned  about  the  charge  of  naturalism.  A  develop- 
ment theory  which  has  no  divine  origination,  or  acknow- 
ledges the  going  forth  in  time  of  no  Divine  Word,  is 
indeed  atheism.  That  which  acknowledges  only  one 
divine  origination,  and  this  from  the  logical  necessity  of 
getting  a  starting-point  for  physical  speculation,  is  as 
near  to  atheism  as  it  can  be.  It  hath  said  in  its  hearty 
There  is  no  God,  and  the  only  thing  which  prevents  it 
from  being  also  the  conclusion  of  the  mere  scientific  intel- 
lect, is  this  logical  impediment  which  God  has  mercifully 
put  in  its  waj'.  But  a  development  theory  in  the  sense 
of  species  from  species,  as  well  as  of  individual  from  indi- 
vidual, may  be  as  pious  as  any  other.  It  may  have  as 
many  Divine  int-erpositions  as  any  other.  It  may  be 
regarded  as  a  method  of  God's  working,  and  that,  too, 
as  rationally  and  as  reverently  as  the  more  limited  system 
to  which  we  give  the  name  of  nature  in  its  ordinary  or 
more  limited  sense.  Modern  theologians  have  been  too 
much  frightened  by  certain  assumptions  and  speculations 
on  this  field.  It  may  well  be  doubted  whether  Mr. 
Cross  ever  produced  insects  under  the  circumstances 
which  he  maintains  to  have  given  birth  to  his  famous 
acari,  but  there  is  no  rational  difiiculty,  and  no  impiety 
in  the  supposition  that  the  Divine  Word  which  first  ori- 
ginated and  gave  law  to  animal  life,  may  have  connected 
its  development  with  certain  chemical  conditions  which 
science  may  discover,  as  well  as  with  the  presence  of  a 
seed  in  certain  states  of  air  and  heat,  or,  in  other  words, 
those  seminal  conditions  under  which  as  yet,  as  far  as 


216      A  NEW  POWER  IN  THE  STREAM  OF  NATURE. 

our  experience  goes,  the  phenomenon  has  received  its 
manifestation.  But  there  is  no  place  here  for  any  such 
speculations ;  since,  as  far  as  our  philological  argument 
is  concerned,  either  view  satisfies  its  requirements.  It 
is  enough  for  us  to  learn,  without  doing  any  violence  to 
the  language  of  the  account,  that  the  production  of  the 
vegetable  and  animal  races  are  set  forth  as  having  been 
originally  a  9^'^'?,  or  groivth — a  growth  out  of  the  earth, 
and  by  and  through  the  earth,  in  other  words,  a  nature 
with  its  laws,  stages,  successions,  and  developments. 

There  was  a  previous  nature  in  the  earth,  whether  it 
had  been  in  operation  for  twenty-four  hours,  or  twenty- 
four  thousand  years.  We  may  compare  this  to  a  stream 
flowing  on  and  having  its  regular  current  of  law,  or  regu- 
lated succession  of  cause  and  effect.  Into  this  stream, 
we  may  say,  there  was  dropped  a  new  power,  superna- 
tural, yet  not  contra-natural,  or  unnatural  —  varying  the 
old  flow  and  raising  it  to  a  higher  law  and  a  higher 
energy,  yet  still  in  harmony  with  it.  New  causations, 
or  new  modifications  of  causation  arise,  and  after  the  suc- 
cessions and  steps  required,  be  they  longer  or  shorter,  a 
world  of  vegetation  is  the  result  of  this  chain  of  causa- 
tion in  the  one  period,  and  through  an  analogous,  if  not 
similar  process,  an  animal  creation  arose  in  another. 
Our  mode  of  argument  may  be  denounced  as  metaphy- 
sical, and  yet  it  is  but  the  analysis  of  a  common  thought, 
which  every  man  who  examines  his  own  mind  will  find 
that  he  has  in  connection  with  the  words  nature,  growtlt, 
etc.,  or  the  terms  that  in  all  languages  grow  out  of  roots 
corresponding  to  those  that  are  here  employed  in  this 
plain  narrative  of  the  Bible. 


LET   THE   WATERS   BRING   FORTH.  217 

We  have  no  guide  here  but  the  Scriptures,  and  if 
they  say  the  earth  brought  forth  the  vegetable  and  ani- 
mal races,  we  will  believe  it,  without  any  fear  of  scien- 
tific objections  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  charge  of  an  im- 
pious naturahzing  on  the  other.  We  feel  that  we  are  in 
a  region  where  we  must  tread  cautiously,  for  it  is  sacred 
ground  ;  yet  still  there  is  nothing  left  but  to  follow  what 
seems  to  be  the  fair  and  natural  meaning  of  the  language. 
The  first  plants  grew^  they  were  made  to  grow  in  the 
earth,  and  hy  the  earth,  and  out  of  the  earth.  They 
were  hoyii  of  the  earth ;  they  were  carried  m  her 
womb  during  their  respective  periods  of  gestation ; 
their  embryo  or  foetal  life  was  fed  from  her  warmth  and 
moisture  ;  and  they  afterwards  were  nurtured  and  grew 
up,  each  to  its  perfection,  on  her  maternal  bosom.  They 
fjreio  ;  and  groivth  is  the  cardinal  idea  of  the  word  na- 
ture. 

The  same  thing,  or  a  similar  thing,  is  said  of  the  ani- 
mals. And  God  said, —  ""Let  the  waters  bring  forth  ahun- 
dantly  the  moving  creature  that  hath  life.^''  Genesis,  i, 
20.  This  refers  to  the  fish  and  reptile  races,  and  what 
would  seem  more  strange,  to  the  birds,  who  are  con- 
nected with  them  in  a  manner  which  would  appear  to 
imply  some  community  or  similarity  of  origin.  And 
again, — "  Let  the  earth  hring  forth  the  living  creature 
after  his  hind.'''*  This  refers  to  the  quadrapeds  and 
land  animals  generally.  In  the  first  passage,  it  might 
be  said  that  'is-jtti">.  has  simply  the  intransitive  sense, 
although  the  subject  is  ta':^^:,  the  waters.  "Let  the 
waters  sivarm  with^''  or  abound  with.  If  the  word  stood 
alone,  there  might  be  some  room  for  such  a  supposition  ; 
but  its  use  in  other  passages,  and  its  connections  here 

19 


218    CAUSAL  SENSE  OF  THE  HEBREW  VERBS. 

force  us  to  give  it  the  sense  of  prolific  breeding,*  and  to 
regard  it  as  causal  in  the  same  manner  as  stann  and  Nstw 
and  ?^"7t^,  in  the  passage  above,  and  in  the  verse  below.f 
This  causal  signification  is  given  to  it  both  in  the  Septua- 
gint  and  Vulgate  versions,  and  it  is  clear  that  those  early 
translators  could  have  had  no  other  thought  in  their 
minds.  Kai  sjVsv  o  dkg,  s^ayayiro  <ra  vSara.  h^'ifSTa  •^vx^'^ 
Jwtfwv.  Dixit  etiam  Deus  producant  aquae  reptile  ani- 
mae  viventis. 

We  have  referred  to  the  objection  which  suggests 
itself  to  some  pious  minds.  The  idea  that  living  vegeta- 
ble organisms,  and  especially  that  the  animal  races,  came 
from  the  operation  of  natural  law,  even  with  the  salvo 
that  God  in  his  own  way,  and  at  his  own  pleasure,  had 
ordained  the  beginning  and  exact  continuance  of  such 
laws,  seems  to  such  to  savor  of  naturalism  and  impiety. 
Hence  the  anxiety  manifested  by  some  commentators  in 
discussing  the  question  whether  the  earth,  in  these  pro- 
ductions, exerted  an  active  force,  or  only  a  passive  recip- 
iency—  Gravior  est  qusestio,  quatenus  aquae  jubeantur 
producere  reptilia  activene  an  materialiter,  an  tantum 
passive.  J  But  we  say  again, —  Let  us  follow  God's  reve- 
lation wherever  it  may  lead  us.  We  have  really  nothing 
else  to  guide  us  here.     Let  us  follow  it  reverently  and 

*  In  Genesis,  viii,  17,  it  is  used  in  connection  with  !i-i9, 
the  universal  term  for  fructification.  There  it  is  applied 
to  the  generation  of  animals.  In  Genesis,  ix,  7,  and  Exodus, 
i,  7,  to  that  of  men. 

t  The  Syriac  toh^  corresponds  in  its  applications  to  the 
Hebrew  verb  y-ity,  being  used  of  generation  and  fructification. 
The  Samaritan  word  has  the  sense  of  birth  or  coming  forth, 
and  can  bear  no  other  in  the  passage. 

IParaeuB*  Comment,  in  Gen,  ch.  i,  v.  20. 


WE   MUST   FOLLOW   THE   EECOED.  .        219 

cautiously,  and  we  are  on  the  safest  ground.  The  yiew 
here  advocated  as  the  right  interpretation,  is  very 
different  from  that  eternal  and  unbroken  development 
which  is  only  another  name  for  the  darkest  atheism. 
God's  personal  sovereignty  and  personal  interposition  are 
as  directly  recognized  as  in  the  most  distinct  exercise 
of  miraculous  power,  and  that  not  once,  or  in  some  far  off 
principium,  but  in  repeated,  oft-repeated  acts.  There 
was  a  time,  not  a  million  of  ages  in  duration,  or  twenty- 
four  hours,  or  twenty-four  minutes,  but  an  instant,  Jv  ^j-rr/ 
Tov  o(p&a'kixou,  "  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,"  when  a  new 
thing  began  to  be.  There  was  an  exact  moment  when 
animal  life  began — a  life  w^hich  before  was  not  in  our 
earth,  and  which,  but  for  the  Divine  Word  saying  Let  it 
he,  most  assuredly  never  would  have  been.  The  earth, 
or  nature  in  her  largest  sense,  though  any  power  previ- 
ously belonging  to  them,  never  would  have  originated,  or 
developed,  or  brought  it  into  existence.  But  still  it 
does  say,  most  distinctly,  the  earth  brought  them  forth,  or 
gave  them  birth.  The  prohfic  waters  was  the  natural 
bed  in  which,  through  the  vivifying  agency  of  the  Ruah 
Elohim,  or  Divine  Spirit,  originated  the  first  "  moving 
things." 

There  is,  indeed,  a  change  afterwards  in  the  language, 
and  it  says  immediately  "  God  created  the  great  tani- 
mm,"  Hebrew,  t=3^r3in,  rendered  the  "  great  whales," 
but  which  is  a  general  name  for  the  leviathan  class  of 
animals.  In  respect  to  this,  however,  there  may  be  vari- 
ous tenable  suppositions.  It  may  mean  that  some  of 
those  huge  creatures,  now  extinct,  and  whose  relics  so 
much  astonish  us,  were  special  formations,  like  man  in  a 
subsequent  period, — so  specially  formed,  perhaps,  because 


220      •  THE    GREAT   WHALES. 

like  him  thej  were  intended,  in  their  period,  to  hold  an 
analogous  though  much  inferior  species  of  dominion  over 
the  other  vegetable  and  animal  tribes.  It  may  denote 
that  this  production  out  of  the  earth  and  waters  was  con- 
fined to  the  fish  and  reptiles,  and  lower  classes  of  aquatic 
birds,  whilst  the  higher  terrestrial  animals  were  direct 
formations.  Or  as  a  third  supposition,  which  seems  best 
to  agree  with  the  whole  spirit  of  the  account,  we  may 
take  the  entire  after  clause  as  explanatory  of  the  first, 
or  as  indicating  that  that  was  the  general  way  in  which 
God  created  the  animal  world,  namely,  through  natural 
agencies,  and  without  intending,  by  the  use  of  the  word 
i<in,  to  make  any  distinction  between  them,  or  to  intimate 
that  one  class  were  any  more  immediate  creations  than 
the  others.  But  let  us  follow  the  record  —  we  say  again, 
and  it  cannot  be  said  too  often,  whatever  it  means,  and 
wherever  it  may  lead  us.  An  implicit  faith  in  the  Divine 
Word  is  more  precious  than  absolute  correctness  of  inter- 
pretation. All  our  light  respecting  the  first  origin  of 
things  we  must  get  from  the  written  revelation,  or  remain 
in  total  darkness.  Science  may  boast  as  she  pjleases, 
but  according  to  her  own  most  vaunted  law,  she  can  only 
trace  the  footsteps  of  a  present  or  once  passing  causation. 
When  those  footsteps  cease  —  as  from  the  very  nature, 
not  only  of  things,  but  ideas,  they  must  cease,  when  we 
come  to  the  question  of  origin  —  she  can  teach  us  nothing. 
This  seems  to  have  been  before  that,  she  may  say ;  or 
between  this  and  that  there  seem  to  have  been  many 
mediate  stages  of  transition  or  development.  Such  is 
the  apparent  lesson  she  reads  in  the  rocks,  the  mines, 
the  lava,  the  beds  of  coral.  Some  such  instruction,  too, 
seems  dimly  hinted  in  the  appearances  presented  by 


SCIENCE  CAN  ONLY  TRACE  FOOTSTEPS.     221 

comparative  anatomy.  But  how,  and  whence,  came  life 
itself?  Whence  the  primal  force  from  which  came  forth 
all  these  manifestations  of  outward  growth  or  develop- 
ment.  The  untaught  Esquimaux  stand  on  an  equal 
footing  here  with  La  Marck,  or  La  Place,  or  Auguste 
Comte.  Without  light  coming  from  above  the  plane  of 
physical  causation,  one  is  just  as  ignorant  as  the  other. 


!»• 


CHAPTEK  XVIII. 


WHAT  IS  MEANT   BY  GOD'S   MAKING  THE   PLANT   BEFORE 

IT   WAS   IN   THE   EARTH. 

What  was  first  made  ?  Was  it  the  tree  or  the  seed  ?  or  something 
before  the  seed  ? — interpretation  of  genesis,  ii,  5. — interpretation 
OF  Hebrews,  xi,  3. — Vulgate  and  Syriac  versions. — Greek  commenta- 
tors.— Internal  evidence. — Calvin. — Whence  did  Paul  learn  his 
doctrine  of  the  creative  word  ?— Colossians,  I,  16.— What  are  meant 

BY  THE    UNSEEN    THINGS.— SeMINAL    POWERS.— PlATO.—GoD    THE    ARCHITECT 
OP    IDEAS. 

It  may  be  well  to  consider  here  the  brief  recapitulation 
which  we  find  in  Genesis,  second  chapter,  verse  4th. 
"  These  are  the  generations  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth 
in  the  day  in  which  the  Lord  God  made  the  heavens,  and 
the  earth,  and  every  tree  of  the  field  before  it  was  in  the 
earth,  and  every  herb  before  it  greiv — (Hebrew,  rros-;, 
LXX,  *^o  Tou  dvargrxaj,  Vulgate,  p'ius  quam  germina- 
vit.)  For  God  had  not  rained  (Hebrew,  caused  it  to 
rain)  upon  the  earth,  and  there  was  no  man  to  till  the 
ground  ;  but  a  mist*  went  up  and  watered  all  the  face 
of  the  earth."  This  might  strike  some  minds  as  favor 
ing  the  idea  of  immediate  or  direct  creation,  —  that  is, 
the  making  of  the  tree  as  a  tree,  or  of  the  very  thing 
which  came  up  out  of  the  earth,  before  it  was  in  the 
earth.  The  first  objection  to  this  —  with  all  reverence 
be  it  said — is  its  apparent  absurdity — not  its  marvel- 

*  Hebrew,  ik.  It  occurs  only  here  and  Job,  xxxvi,  27. 
The  LXX,  Yuigate,  and  Syriac,  all  render  it  a  fomitain 
which  went  up  and  watered  the  whole  face  of  the  earth. 


THE  LIFE  BEFORE  THE  SEED.         223 

lousness,  or  supematuralism,  but  its  apparent  want  of  all 
meaning  and  consistency.  Something  else,  then,  must 
be  meant  bj  his  "  making  the  tree  before  it  was  in  the 
earth."  If  we  refer  it  to  the  seed,  we  have  the  same 
difficulty  in  kind,  if  not  in  degree.  The  seed  itself,  as 
much  as  the  tree,  is  an  outward  organization,  the  appa- 
rent product  of  a  living  power  lying  back  of  it  as  a  real 
entity^  per  se,  and,  in  fact,  better  entitled  to  the  seminal 
name  than  the  material  seminal  organism,  because  it  is 
this  living  power  which  builds  the  outward  matter  of  the 
seed  into  its  peculiar  form  and  structure,  thus  constitut- 
ing its  esse7ice,  or  making  it  what  it  is.  Besides,  if  we 
search  for  this  i^reviously  existing  thing,  by  going  back 
of  the  tree  to  the  seed,  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  recede  a  step  farther  to  the  vitality  that  dwells  in 
the  seed  itself,  and  which,  in  the  order  of  nature,  as  well 
as  in  the  order  of  ideas,  is  anterior  to  the  material  organ- 
ization. If  such  a  door  may  be  opened  in  the  interpre- 
tation, or  if  we  depart  at  all  from  the  ultimate  outivard 
product,  there  is  not  only  an  exegetical  liberty  which 
we  may  rationally  employ,  but  an  imperative  consistency 
that  will  not  permit  us  to  stop  short  of  the  vital  and  im- 
material principle. 

Even  admitting,  however,  that  the  brevity  of  this 
second  account  might  suggest  the  idea  of  an  immediate 
creation  of  ultimate  products  —  especially  if  considered 
by  itself — still  we  say  it  would  not  be  enough  to  do 
away  the  force  of  the  expressions  employed  in  the  fuller 
and  more  detailed  narrative.  A  mere  silence  cannot  be 
placed  against  an  express  assertion.  A  general  affirma- 
tion of  production  may  be  in  accordance  with  another 
which  affirms  that  this  was  through  any  number  of  medi- 


224  HEBREWS,  XI,   3. 

ate  causalities.  But  aside  from  all  such  considerations, 
the  general  asjoect  of  this  short  summary,  if  we  view  it 
from  the  right  stand-point,  will  strike  us  as'  in  perfect 
harmony  with  the  letter  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the  first 
and  longer  statement.  It  is  only  another  mode  of  express- 
ing that  same  great  truth,  or  principle,  which  it  seems  to 
be  the  chief  aim  of  Scripture  to  present  in  all  it  reveals 
to  us  of  the  work  of  creation.  It  is  neither  more  nor 
less  than  the  essential  act  of  faith,  as  Paul  sets  it  forth, 
Hebrews,  xi,  3,  in  which  we  believe  that  "  the  worlds  (touj 
utumg,  the  aeons  or  ages)  were  brought  out  in  order*  by 
the  word  of  God  ;  so  that  the  things  that  are  seen  were 
made  (or  generated)  from  things  that  do  not  ai^pear,^^ 
(Jk  ixri  (paivo^s'vwv.)  That  is,  the  outward  or  phenomenal 
entities  were  generated  or  born  (/s/ovt'vai)  from  the  invi- 
sible, immaterial  vital  powers,  principles,  laws,  (f'jrs^ij.arixh 
Xo/oi,  spermatic  words  or  ideas,  call  them  what  we  will, 
which  are  themselves  the  first  and  immediate  creations 
of  the  Diidne  Word  going  forth  before  any  new  agency 
of  nature,  whether  the  universal  or  any  particular  nature. 
It  may  be  well  to  dwell  here  on  the  fuller  exegesis 
of  the  passage  that  has  been  already  several  times  quoted, 
and  which  is  referred  to  in  the  introduction  as  containing 
the  key  of  our  whole  argument.  It  will  be  seen  that  in 
our  translation  of  Hebrews,  xi,  3,  there  is  a  slight  depart 
ure  from  the  common  reading  of  the  Greek  text,  as  well 
as  from  the  common  English  rendering.  For  this  the 
reader  is  entitled  to  our  reasons.  They  are  of  two  kinds, 
outward  authority  and  internal  evidence.     Under  the 

*  Greek,  xaTYi^Ti(f&ai.  The  radical  sense  of  the  word  is  to 
"  adjust,  to  put  together  in  harmony  ;"  from  the  primary  root 
a^w,  whence  art,  harmony,  etc. 


VULGATE   AND    SYEIAC    VERSIONS.  225 

first  head  we  may  cite  the  exact  concurrence  of  the  Latin 
Vulgate  and  the  old  Peschito  or  Sjriac  Version.  The 
authors  of  both  these  must  have  read  ix-  m  instead  of 
jAT  SH,  that  is,  so  as  to  give  the  negative  to  the  participle 
instead  of  the  verb.  The  Arabic  Version  follows  them 
in  this  ;  but  being  of  a  later  date,  is  not,  therefore, 
of  so  high  authority,  although  still  more  ancient  than  any 
extant  Greek  manuscripts.  We  venture  to  say  that  the 
proof  drawn  from  even  a  large  number  of  these  is  out- 
weighed by  this  joint  testimony  of  the  two  oldest  versions 
of  the  New  Testament.  Any  number  of  manuscripts 
may  have  been  copied  one  from  the  other,  but  it  would 
be  exceedingly  difficult  to  explain  how  both  these  earhest 
translations  give  precisely  the  same  rendering,  unless 
there  had  been  that  in  the  then  common  reading  of  the 
Greek  text  which  fully  warranted  it.  The  reader  who 
will  take  the  pains  to  examine  other  varying  passages  in 
which  these  two  old  versions  concur,  and  to  observe  how 
uniformly  their  joint  testimony  is  supported  by  the  inter- 
nal evidence,  will  see  ample  reason  for  the  deference  we 
pay  to  them  as  the  best  proof  of  a  genuine  ancient  read- 
ing. In  both  the  Syriac  and  the  Vulgate,  the  sense  is 
clear  and  precisely  similar — "  So  that  the  things  that 
are  seen  were  made  from  things  that  are  unseen''^ — ut 
ex  invisiUlibus  visihilia  fierent.  What  adds  great  weight 
to  this  rendering  is  the  fact  that  it  is  sustained  by  the 
Greek  commentators  generally,  by  Erasmus,  Grotius,  and 
other  distinguished  scholars  of  former  centuries,  and  by 
Tholuck,  Olshausen,  Ebrard,  and  others,  of  the  most 
modern  period.  The  inward  evidence  is  equally  strong. 
The  verse  is  given  as  the  first  illustration  of  the  Apostle's 
definition  of  faith.     "  Faith  is  the  evidence  of  tilings 


INTERNAL    EVTT)-RNCE.       CALVTN- 

unseeny  Now,  with  all  reverence  be  it  said,  the  com- 
mon rendering  of  verse  third,  instead  of  furnishing  the 
most  striking  example  of  this,  would  be  a  feeble  and  point- 
less negation,  such  as  never  is,  and  never  can  be,  the 
object  of  faith.  Faith  is  the  evidence,  not  of  what  is  not, 
but  of  what  is.  It  is  the  evidence  of  things  unseen,  not 
as  nonentities,  but  as  the  most  substantial  of  existences. 
Besides,  on  the  other  view,  the  whole  symmetry  of  the 
argument  is  lost ;  but  how  beautifully  is  it  presented  in 
the  Syriac  and  Vulgate  versions.  "  Faith  is  the  evi- 
dence of  things  unseen,"  for  by  it  "  we  understand  that 
(in  creation)  the  things  that  are  seen  came  out  of  or 
were  born  of  things  that  are  unseen.  Calvin  would  get 
the  same  meaning  from  the  Greek  as  it  stands  in  the 
received  text,  only  connecting  h  with  the  word  following 
so  as  to  read  la-*)  £)c(pa<vo/A^vwy.  This  cannot  be  supported 
philologically,  although  some  manuscripts  may  have  the 
words  thus  connected,  but  his  rendering,  and  the  reasons 
he  gives  for  it,  show  how  clearly  the  sound  judgment 
and  logical  discernment  for  which  this  commentator  is 
distinguished,  led  him  to  see  what  was  demanded  to 
make  the  example  in  harmony  with  the  definition,  and 
also  to  feel  that  the  general  sense  here  must  be  the  same 
with  the  "  unseen  things,''^  (toI  do^ara,^')  Romans,  i,  20, 
and  the  m  (3'ks'n:6iism^  2  Corinthians,  iv,  18.  In  accord- 
ance with  this,  he  translates  the  passage  substantially  as 
it  is  in  the  Vulgate  and  the  Syriac, —  ''Fide  intelligimus 
aptata  esse  saecula  verbo  Dei  ut  7ion  apparentium  spec- 
tacula  fierent  — "  By  faith  we  understand  that  the  ages 
were  adjusted  by  the  Word  of  God,  so  that  the  manifesta- 
tions (the  phenomena)  were  from  things  not  appearing." 


COLOSSIONS,   I,   16.      PAUL  AND  PLATO.  227 

We  have  the  same  distinction,  Colossians, i,  16, — "In 
Him  were  created  all  things  visible  and  invisible,''^  ^a  o^am 
xaj  ra  ao^ara.)  There,  as  here,  bj  the  invisible  things 
are  meant  not  merely  objects  that  are  unseen  as  matters 
of  fact,  because  they  are  not  before  the  human  eye,  or 
are  simply  absent  from  us  in  time  and  space,  but  the 
things  or  entities  that  are  in  their  very  nature  invisible, 
incapable  of  being  seen,  or  becoming  the  objects  of  sense ; 
since  sight  here  is  put  by  Paul  as  well  as  by  Plato  for 
all  the  senses.*  They  are  the  Moy]ra^  or  the  voou>sva,  to 
use  Paul's  very  word,  in  distinction  from  the  aKi&yiTa. 
They  are  not  merely  what  we  would  call  spiritual  things, 
or  truths,  but  the  unseen  dynamical  entities  which  are 
not  only  the  law,  but  the  life  of  the  phenomenal  and 

*  No  careful  reader  can  avoid  being  struck  with  the  resem- 
blance between  the  language  of  Plato  and  that  of  Paul  in  such 
passages  as  2  Corinthians,  iv,  18,  Hebrews,  xi,  1,  8,  Romans, 
i,  20,  Colossians,  i,  16.  Compare  especially  the  clear  con- 
trast presented  by  Plato  in  the  Eepublie,  508  C,  where  he 
represents  God,  or  the  Good,  as  having  the  same  relation  to 
the  ideal  world  that  the  sun,  or  light,  bears  to  the  visible, 
ori'TTSP  auTo  iv  ToTg  vor\ToTg  it^og  ts  vovv  xal  to.  voovfJ^sva  tovto 
TouTov  £v  ToTs  o^uToTg  cT^o^  TS  Osj^jv  xoLi  TO.  h^(^\i.sva.  Compare, 
also,  509,  D.,  Phaedo,  79,  A,  Gwfjtsv  ouv  /SoJXsi  5uo  sV^^ 
Twv  ovTt^v,  TO  fxsv  o^aTov  TO  61  a?iS:'s.  "Let  us  distinguish 
two  kinds  of  being,  the  visible  (or  the  phenomenal)  and  the 
unseen."  Numerous  passages  of  the  same  kind  may  be  found 
throughout  the  dialogues.  The  Apostle  may  not  have  read 
Plato,  much  less  copied  from  him  ;  but  this  Platonic  style  of 
speech  had  become  quite  common  in  his  age,  and  must  have 
been  familiar  in  the  schools  of  Tarsus,  that  third  great  seat 
of  ancient  learning  after  Athens  and  Alexandria.  It  is  no 
impeachment  of  Paul,  or  of  Paul's  inspiration,  that  he  em- 
ployed the  same  truthful  language,  not  only  as  Plato  did,  but 
also  to  represent  invisible  entities  far  higher  than  were  ever 
dreamed  of  in  his  philosophy. 


228      PAUL  CARRIES  THE  IDEA  FARTHER. 

material.  All  these,  whether  of  higher  or  lower  rank, 
Paul  tells  us  come  from  the  Eternally  Begotten  Word, 
the  n^wroVoxo^j  or  First  Bom  before  all  creation,"  Colos- 
siaus,  i,  15.  They  are  £v  auTcj  in  Him,  and  5»'  ccutoo 
through  Mini, —  that  is,  as  the  immaterial  laAV  and  the 
outward  manifestation — "and  in  Him  all  things  stand 
together,"  tfuvsV-r^ixs.  .  And  then  the  Apostle  proceeds 
farther,  ''  things  in  heaven  and  things  on  the  earth. 
Thrones,  Dominions,  Principalites  and  Powers,"  whether 
these  be  dynamical  or  personal  entities,  they  are  all  from 
the  same  life-giving,  law-giving,  spirit-quickening,  creative 
Word.  Next  he  rises  still  higher  to  the  moral  or  purely 
spiritual  world,  and  traces  the  same  relation  of  the  Aoyog^ 
or  Word,  to  the  Church.  He  is  the  Author  of  the  new 
spiritual  life  which  the  Church  is  developing  in  humanity 
during  the  new  dispensation,  or  alC^v^  or  daT/,  of  Christi- 
anity. No  one  of  these  applications  of  the  language  is 
any  more  metaphorical  than  another.  Natural  life,  psy- 
chical or  animal  hfe,  pneumatical  or  spiritual  life,  all 
come  from  one  originating,  generating,  animating,  and 
renovating  Word. 

But  where  did  Paul  learn  all  this  ?  From  personal 
revelation,  it  might  be  said,  as  he  himself  has  more  than 
intimated.  And  yet  we  may  suppose  that  this  was  in 
connection  with  the  study  of  the  Older  Scripture,  either 
as  called  to  mind  from  the  expositions  he  had  learned  in 
the  school  of  Gamaliel,  or  as  it  came  up  still  more  strongly 
and  vividly  to  his  thought  during  the  period  of  his  con- 
templative seclusion  in  Arabia.  The  germs  of  these 
ideas,  which  are  so  wondrously  expanded  in  his  own 
mind,  he  found  in  such  passages  as  Psalms,  xxxiii,  6, 
Proverbs,  viii,  22,  and  especially  in  the  Mosaic  account 


WHERE   DID    PAUL    LEARNT   THIS?  229 

of  the  creation  when  studied  from  the  higher  position  to 
which  Paul  had  attained.  In  that  declaration,  ''And 
God  said/^  which  precedes  every  creative  act,  he  found 
the  going  forth  of  the  Eternal  Word  or  Logos ;  and  he 
does  not  hesitate  to  hypostatize  it  as  the  earlier  Jewish 
interpretations  have  done  ;  only  Paul  carries  out  the  idea 
to  other  entities  about  which  the  Mosaic  record  is  silent. 
There  had  been  creations  older  than  that  of  our  visible 
earth  and  heavens.  As  the  Word  went  forth,  *'  Let 
there  be  light,"  "  Let  there  be  a  firmament,"  "  Let  the 
dry  land  appear,"  "  Let  the  earth  bring  forth,"  ''Let  us 
make  man,"  so,  also,  in  some  of  the  still  more  ancient 
days  had  it  been  said.  Let  there  be  Thrones,  Let  there 
be  Dominions,  Let  there  be  "  Principalities  and  Powers 
in  the  heavenly  places."  "  For  in  Him  it  was  pleasing 
that  all  fullness  should  dwell,  so  that  He  is  the  "  recon- 
ciliation," the  "  peace,"  the  pervading  harmony  in  the 
physical,  spiritual  and  moral  worlds.  "  He  maketh 
peace  in  his  high  places." 

Some  would  regard  the  expression,  m  (pa<vo>£va,  He- 
brews, xi,  3,  as  equivalent  to  tcI  ^yj  ovrct,  and  the  entire 
verse  as  simply  meaning  that  God  made  all  things  out 
of  nothing.  This  is  Pearson's  view.  But  the  whole 
aspect  of  the  passage  shows  that  these  unseen,  or  unap- 
l)earing  things  are  not  spoken  of  as  nihilities,  for  which 
the  proper  term  would  be  Ta  f^^  ovto.^  but  true  and  most 
real  existences  contrasted  with  (pajvofxsva,  as  being  not 
objects  of  sense  in  any  actual  or  possible  way,  and  yet 
the  seminal  source  of  all  natural  or  sensible  manifestar 
tions,  nor  merely,  on  the  other  hand,  naked  or  abstract 
truths,  but  created  ideas,  types,  or  powers  having  their 
acting  and  their  energy  in  time.     If  the  m^ara.^  or  the 

20 


230       WHAT  ARE  THE  UNSEEN  THINGS? 

unseen,  are  only  the  negations  of  tlie  o^ara,  the  seen,  then 
the  latter  are  the  highest  realities,  and  the  whole  power 
of  the  antithetical  cHmax  is  destroyed. 

To  apply  all  this  to  our  present  argument,  we  would 
f  say,  with  all  reverence,  that  here  in  the  works  of  the 
third  and  fifth  days,  or  in  the  production  of  life  from  the 
earth,  the  "  unseen  things  that  are  understood"  are  the 
created  ideas  or  types,  the  divine  seminal  powers  which 
are  anterior  in  time,  as  well  as  in  order  of  existence,  to 
all  natural  or  outward  manifestation.  Before  the  earth 
could  bring  forth,  or  begin  to  bring  forth,  the  lowest 
form  of  vegetation,  there  must  be  the  Divine  Word  call- 
ing into  being  those  seminal  activities,  or  principia,  whose 
presence  the  old  nature  is  commanded  to  acknowledge, 
and  by  which,  henceforth,  the  new  nature,  so  far  as  it 
can  be  called  a  new  nature,  is  to  be  modified.  Thus 
did  "  God  make  the  herb,  the  tree,"  each  after  its  type, 
or  kind,  "  before  it  was  in  the  earth."  Thus  did  he 
make  it  "  before  it  greic^^  or  germinated,  or  had  a  mate- 
rial seed,  or  outward  seminal  organism,  or  any  outward 
material  being  whatever,  whether  in  the  plant  or  in  the 
seed.  God  made  the  perfect  plant,  it  may  be  truly  said,- 
and  this,  too,  not  only  as  a  mediate  work  which  would 
be  the  fact  phenomenally  and  chronologically,  but  also  as 
an  effect  (efiectum  or  thing  done)  viewed  as  already 
existing  in  the  cause. 

In  a  higher  and  truer  sense,  however,  the  making  of 
the  formal  in  distinction  from  the  material  cause  was 
the  real  making,  and  this  the  thing  made, — that  is,  the 
law,  idea,  or  principle  in  each  thing, —  that  by  virtue  of 
which  it  can  be  truly  called  a  thing,  and  which  alone 
can  be  said  to  make  it  what  it  is.     In  no  other  way  can 


THE  UNSEEN  MADE  BEFORE  THE  SEEN.     231 

tlie  two  passages  be  brought  into  that  perfect  harmony 
which  is  so  evidently  intended.  In  no  other  tvay  could 
it  he  said,  G-od  made  the  plants  hefore  they  were  in  the 
earth,  and  yet  have  this  consistent  with  the  idea,  so 
exp-essly  given,  of  their  mediate  'production  through  the 
earth.  Instead  of  being  far  fetched  and  unnecessarily 
metaphysical,  it  is  the  only  easy  way  m  which  we  can 
form  any  notion  of  the  process  that  will  not  destroy  the 
supernatural  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  natural  on  the 
other, —  throwing  all  meaning  out  of  a  portion  of  the 
terms  employed,  or  reducing  them  to  a  mere  figure  of 
speech,  which  there  is  no  evidence  or  intimation  that  the 
writer  intended  to  employ. 

There  was,  then,  a  creation  anterior  to  any  natural 
causahty,  and  this  seems  to  be  meant  by  the  declaration 
that  "  God  had  not  yet  caused  it  to  rain  upon  the  earth, 
and  that  there  was  no  man  to  till  the  ground."  The 
birth  of  these  seminal  principles  was  independent  of  all 
natural  agency.  In  this  sense  it  was  before  the  fertiliz- 
ing rain,  or  the  assiduous  human  culture.  However 
progressive  and  natural  the  after-production  from  the 
earth,  the  creation  of  these  seminal  types,  or  principles, 
was  wholly  supernatural,  immediate,  divine.  We  do  not 
hesitate  to  use  here  the  subhme  expression  of  Plato,  for 
we  regard  it  as  akin  to  the  thought  which  Paul  presents 
in  the  Eleventh  of  Hebrews,  ''  God  is  the  Maker  of 
types  (twv  tu<wv),  He  is  the  architect  of  ideas;"*  but 
not  as  barren  thoughts  or  speculative  theorems.  Along 
with  the  law,  and  constitutive  of  it,  there  is  the  plas- 
tic or  formative  power,  the  ruling  or  directing  energy. 
This,  there  is  no  absurdity  in  saying,  was  put  in  the 

■*See  PlatQs  Republic,  Lib.  x,  597,  D. 


232     THE  OLD  LIFE  IN  EVERY  NEW  PLANT. 

earth  to  gro^.v;  for  it  means,  that  by  a  new  power, 
then  given,  the  earth  was  made  to  bring  it  forth  or  out, 
that  is,  give  it  birth  in  outward  material  form.  This 
was  the  genesis  of  the  first  vegetation.  The  earth 
brings  it  forth;  and  then  through  the  plants'  cyclical, 
seed-bearing  law,  which  is  a  part  of  its  first  creation,  con- 
tinues in  existence  this  ancient  germ,  until  it  may  please 
God  to  change  or  hmit  the  process,  either  by  direct  inter- 
position, or  by  suffering  the  nature  he  had  made,  both 
in  the  plant  and  in  the  earth,  to  exhaust  its  finite  powers. 
There  is  a  spiritual  reality, —  shall  we  shrink  from 
using  the  term  ?  —  or  at  least  an  immaterial  entity  in  all, 
even  the  lowest,  forms  of  vegetable  as  well  as  animal 
organization.  It  is  a  power  which  no  chemistry  ever 
created  or  can  destroy.  It  is  that  which,  in  one  sense, 
may  be  said  to  re-appear  in  every  new  germination  of 
the  plant — the  same  sv  sv  'KoXkoTg^  or  one  in  many,  ever 
living  on  though  its  individual  manifestations  die,  and 
ever  repeating  itself  from  the  first  appearance  of  the 
vegetable  genera  upon  the  earth,  down  to  the  specific 
exhibitions  of  the  same  old  life  that  annually  bud  and 
bloom  around  us.  Call  it  law,  idea,  power,  principle, 
whatever  we  may,  it  is  a  reality,  a  high  reality,  the  highest 
reality  connected  with  the  material  organization  ;  and 
this  it  is  which  God  made,  before  the  tree  was  in  the 
earth,  or  the  herb  grew,  or  rains  had  fertilized  the  seed, 
or  the  careful  hand  of  man  had  supphed  the  conditions  of 
a  rich  and  genial  soil. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


THE   CYCLICAL   LAW   OF   ALL   NATURES. 

Two    CONTRASTED   STATES    IN   ALL    NATURES. — EACH   HAS    ITS  MORNING  AND  ITS 

EVENING. — Necessity"  for   this. — Growth    to  a  maximum. — That  whose 

LAW  of    EXISTENCE    IS  GROWTH    MUST    DECLINE. — ThE  TREE  COULD  NOT    LIVE 

FOREVER.— Why  ?— The  same  law  in    the  largest  as  in   the  smallbst 

PHYSICAL  growths. — APPLIES  TO  PLANTS,  TO  ANIMALS,  TO  RACES,  TO  NATIONS, 
TO  AGES  OR  WORLDS. — HeNCE  THE  NECESSITY  OF  REPEATED  MORNINGS,  OR 
INTERPOSITIONS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL. — ILLUSTRATION  FROM  A  PLATONIC 
MYTH, 

Before  proceeding  to  consider  the  creation  of  man,  it 
may  be  well  to  present  certain  views  which  have  an 
«qual  application  to  all  the  periods,  and  may,  therefore, 
be  most  properly  discussed  in  a  separate  chapter.  Each 
of  the  great  creative  times,  or  days,  we  have  regarded 
as  characterized  by  two  divisions,  or  two  opposite  and 
distinctly  marked  states.  In  the  most  comprehensive 
view  we  can  take  of  them,  one  may  be  called  the  natural, 
the  other  the  supernatural,  one  the  night  of  nature's 
rest,  whether  we  regard  it  as  a  steady  ongoing,  or  as  a 
period  of  decay  and  torpor  after  a  preceding  growth,  the 
other  the  morning  of  God's  new  working,  when  the  Word 
again  goes  forth,  and  the  old  slumbering  nature  is  awaked 
to  a  higher  energy,  and  made  to  co-operate  in  the  pro- 
duction of  a  higher  organization,  or  a  higher  order  of 
being.  It  is  immaterial  in  what  chronological  order  we 
take  them,  except  that  if  we  would  maintain  the  analogy 
of  evening  and  morning,  the  evening,  or  the  natural, 
would  come  first.     This  must  be  the  order  of  every 

20* 


234  NECESSITY  FOR  PERIODS   IN  NATURE. 

account  that  does  not  commence  with  the  absolute  prin= 
cipium,  or  principium  principiorum.  Thus,  we  think, 
the  whole  creation  that  is  meant  to  be  revealed  to  us  in 
the  Bible  commences  with  a  pre-existent  nature.  There 
was  a  nature  in  the  dark  chaos,  however  rudimentary, 
inchoate,  or  imperfect  it  may  have  been.  It  may  have 
so  existed  for  a  longer  or  shorter  time,  although  this 
chaos,  or  imperfect  nature,  had  its  commencement, 
doubtless,  in  some  supernatural  energizing  of  a  still  more 
ancient  date.  The  principium,  therefore,  of  our  present 
mundane  creation,  commencing  thus  with  an  existing 
natural,  the  evening  is  older  than  the  morning,  and  ever 
after,  throughout  the  whole  series,  keeps  the  chronolo- 
gical precedence-  But  not  to  go  over  ground  on  which 
we  have  already  dwelt,  it  may  be  sufiScient  for  the 
present  argument  to  allude  briefly  to  the  manner  in  which 
those  divisions  may  be  characterized  by  the  most  direct 
antithetical  features.  They  are  to  each  other  as  night 
and  morning,  as  passivity  and  activity,  as  inward  devel- 
opment of  an  imposed  law  followed  by  a  new  energy  from 
without,  as  a  long  going  on  of  natural  law  and  then 
sudden  and  startling  exhibitions  of  the  supernatural. 

But  these  ideas  alone  do  not  complete  the  contrast. 
The  mind  is  led  to  think  of  nature  as  containing  in  her- 
self, or  as  wo  might  better  say,  in  her  imperfection,  an 
absolute  necessity  for  such  antithetical  alternations. 
Nature,  we  have  seen,  can  never  rise  above  herself,  or 
get  above  the  law  imposed  for  her  working.  Hence,  if 
she  is  ever  carried  to  a  higher  state,  and  made  to  co-ope- 
rate in  the  birth  of  higher  products,  there  is  an  impera- 
tive demand  for  the  new  outward  supernatural  energy. 
Without  the  first  creative  Word,  darkness  would  have 


THE   TRUE   IDEA   OF   A   MAXIMUM.  236 

ever  rested  upon  the  face  of  the  waters.  Without  the 
second,  there  never  would  have  been  a  sky,  or  clouds, 
or  atmosphere.  Nature's  old  power  would  never  have 
sufficed  for  such  a  result.  Without  the  third,  the  dry 
land  would  never  have  appeared,  or  the  waters  been 
gathered  together.  Without  those  that  succeeded,  the 
first  dawning  of  vegetable  life  would  never  have  made  its 
appearance  ;  much  less  would  animal  existence  have  ever 
awaked  from  the  darkness  and  death  of  the  antecedent 
night.  But  still  .more  than  this.  Although  nature,  on 
the  supposition  of  her  being  finite,  and  not  God,  could 
never  rise  above  an  imposed  law,  and  therefore  the  doc- 
trine of  an  eternal  progressive  development  must  be  false, 
yet  still  she  could  keep  up  to  this  law,  it  might  be  said, 
and  thus  maintain  an  eternal  ongoing  in  the  same  plane, 
and  the  same  direction.  In  other  words,  the  nature  which 
has  once  produced  vegetation  would  forever  produce  it, 
of  the  same  kind  and  in  the  same  degree  ;  that  which  had 
given  birth  to  animals  would  go  on  producing  animals  to 
all  eternity.  There  would  be  no  decay  in  it,  no  pause, 
or  check,  or  running  down,  unless  supernaturally  retarded, 
or  stopped,  by  the  same  power  which  originated  its 
activity.  At  least,  it  might  be  supposed  that  when 
nature,  or  a  nature,  had  reached  what  might  be  called 
its  maximum  in  any  stage,  that  maximum  would  be  for- 
ever thereafter  maintained,  without  any  ab-extra  aid,  and 
on  the  supposition  of  no  ab-extra  hindrance.  Here, 
therefore,  it  becomes  necessary  to  enquire — What  is  the 
right  idea  of  a  physical  maximum,  or  maximum  develop- 
ment, and  what  conceptions  are  we  compelled,  by  the 
laws  of  our  thinking,  to  regard  as  entering  into  the  state- 
ment by  which  it  is  set  forth  ?     In  such  analysis  it  is 


236  INCREASING  POWER  OR  INCREASING  GROWTH. 

found,  that  we  must  make  one  of  two  suppositions.  A 
maximum  implies  either  an  increasing  power ^  or  an  m- 
creasing  growth  of  the  same  power.  The  last  may  seem 
to  involve  a  contradiction,  and,  therefore,  to  make  the 
meaning  clearer,  we  would  saj,  that  in  the  one  case,  the 
degrees  of  more  or  less  would  be  in  the  power  itself 
making  it  at  every  stage  a  greater  power  than  it  was 
before ;  in  the  other,  they  would  be  predicated  of  the  out- 
ward manifestation,  which  is  simply  the  outward  groAvth, 
whilst  the  power,  whether  hidden  or  manifested,  remains 
the  same.  Thus  the  power  is  all  in  the  coiled  spring ; 
the  growth  is  in  the  manifestation  through  which  that 
power  is  visibly  brought  out,  as  we  may  say,  in  the 
increasing  or  decreasing  motions  of  the  machinery  which 
it  impels.  The  first,  or  an  increase  in  the  power  itself, 
would  involve  the  absurdity  (absurdity,  we  mean,  when 
nature  alone  is  concerned)  of  something  from  nothing. 
It  would  violate  that  cardinal  axiom,  e  nihilo  nihil,  which 
sceptical  naturalists  are  so  fond  of  when  applied,  where 
it  has  no  application,  to  the  supernatural  works  of  God  ; 
since  in  itself,  or  where  nature  alone  is  concerned,  more 
from  less,  (which  is  implied  in  an  increase  of  the  power,) 
would  involve  precisely  the  same  idea,  and  present  the 
same  contradiction  to  the  reason.  •  The  second  supposi« 
tion,  or  that  of  the  maximum  of  growth,  has  no  such  difii- 
culty.  The  ])oiver,  the  law,  or  the  nature,  as  we  might 
better  call  it,  is  as  perfect  in  the  seed  as  in  the  tree,  as 
perfect  and  as  strong  in  the  pressure  of  the  imprisoned 
fluids,  as  when  they  are  playing  in  the  full  formed  jet  or 
fountain.  The  tree  is  to  the  seed  the  extent  of  its 
growth,  or  the  state  in  which  it  all  comes  out,  or  in 
which  the  hidden  power  is  all  revealed  in  the  perfect  or 
finished  product. 


TBE   TREE   CANNOT  LIVE   FOREVEE  —  WHY?      237 

Now  we  are  compelled  to  regard  this  maximum,  whose 
nature  we  are  enquiring  into,  as  being  of  this  latter  kind. 
But  here  comes  in  another  thought.  Could  this  outward 
phenomenal  growth  or  manifestation  be  maintained  for- 
ever ?  Could  the  powe?',  which  has  thus  brought  itself 
out  in  the  tree,  and  made  the  exterior  material  elements 
contribute  to  its  manifestation,  thus  remain  out  eternally, 
or  indefinitely,  presenting  the  same  unchanging,  unde- 
caying  appearance  f  So,  perhaps,  it  might  be  thought, 
if  there  were  no  opposing  influence  from  without,  whether 
regarded  as  proceeding  from  the  supernatural,  or  from 
some  other  nature.  There  appears  no  reason,  it  might 
be  said,  why  the  tree,  when  once  it  had  attained  its 
maximum  size  and  maturity,  should  not  live  on  forever 
green,  and  forever  strong.  And  yet,  aside  from  any 
conclusion  w^e  might  derive  from  experience,  there  is 
something  in  the  laws  of  our  own  minds,  or  of  our  own 
thinking,  which  tells  us  that  such  could  not  be  the  case, 
that  it  is  impossible,  not  from  incidental  circumstances, 
but,  in  the  very  nature  of  things.  There  would  seem  to 
be  a  necessity  of  an  opposite  process  following  every  such 
growth  to  a  maximum  degree  of  manifestation.  In  other 
words,  there  is  a  necessity  in  the  very  idea  of  nature,  or 
a  nature,  that  that  which  groivs  must  decline.  What- 
ever can  only  come  to  its  height  by  successive  stages,  must 
decrease  by  a  corresponding  but  inverse  process.  That 
which  necessitates  the  one  necessitates  the  other.  What 
can  only  be  reached  gradually,  can  never  be  retained 
perynanently,  without  the  exertion  of  a  greater  power 
than  was  called  out  in  the  attainment.  This  would  be 
involved  in  that  idea  which  is  so  inherent  in  nature, —  the 
idea  of  gradual  or  successive  effort, — by  which  growth^ 


238    THE  SAME  LAW  IN  ALL  ORGANIZATIONS. 

instead  of  instantaneous  production,  is  necessitated  as 
the  very  law  of  its  existence.  Decay  is  thus  the  neces- 
sary opposite  of  growth,  and  yet  power  is  no  more  lost  in 
the  one  case  than  gained  in  the  other.  It  is  only  relax- 
ing an  effort,  the  maintaining  of  which  at  the  maximum 
tension,  would  demand  a  greater  strength  than  was 
required  to  reach  it,  or  a  greater  strength  than  the 
nature  possesses. 

This  same  law  of  physical  force  must  prevail  in  the 
highest  and  largest  as  well  as  in  the  smallest  and  loAvest 
organizations.  The  growth  and  decline  of  a  plant,  or  of 
a  tree,  must  be  governed,  in  this  respect,  by  the  same 
principle  with  that  of  a  world,  or  a  system  of  worlds.  It 
must  be  the  same  in  the  briefest  natural  cycle,  and  in 
one  of  the  great  periods  of  creation.  It  must  be  the 
same,  too,  not  only  as  regards  the  individual,  but  the 
species,  or  the  genus.  Not  only  will  the  tree  reach  its 
maximum  and  then  exhibit  the  reverse  process,  but  the 
species  of  trees  to  which  it  belongs  will  have  a  corre- 
sponding cycle  of  growth,  maximum,  decline.  The  same 
analogy  carries  us  on  to  apply  the  principle  to  the  gene- 
ral order  of  being  which  embraces  species  as  well  as  indi- 
viduals. The  whole  system  of  vegetable  hfe,  must  be 
conceived  of  as  having  thus  its  maximum  and  minimum 
state  of  development,  with  the  intermediate  and  alternat- 
ing generations  of  growth  and  decline. 

But  we  may  advance  a  step  beyond  this.  The  ques- 
tion may  come  up, — Would  the  cycle  itself  be  eternal  ? 
That  is,  would  it  repeat  itself  so  as  ever  to  attain  the 
same  maximum,  or  would  there  be  also  a  decline  here, 
each  highest  production  being  less  and  lower  than  that  of 
the   preceding   revolution,  until   finally   the   nature   is 


SAME  LAW  OF  MAXIMUM   CYCLES.  239 

exhausted,  or  falls  to  a  state  from  whicli  it  must  be 
revived  by  a  new  energy,'  or  a  new  infusion  of  life  from 
the  supernatural  ?  The  whole  course  of  the  analogy  we 
have  been  considering  would  certainly  tend  to  this  latter 
conclusion.  To  sustain  itself  at  the  maximum  tension 
would  demand  a  greater  force  than  was  required  to  reach 
it.  The  same  principle  in  physics  would  be  equally 
against  the  continuance  of  a  maximum  cycle  among 
cycles. 

The  position  we  have  reached  is  that  all  natures,  lesser 
natures,  greater  natures,  partial  natures,  individual  na- 
tures, specific  natures,  general  natures — the  one  univer- 
sal nature  —  have  all  one  law  of  growth,  maximum, 
decline,  ortus,t7^ansitus,interitus;  and  that  if  one  outlives 
one  or  more  revolutions,  it  is  only  to  go  round  in  a  simi- 
lar cycle  with  a  corresponding  law  of  decrease  at  each 
repetition. 

In  other  words,  the  cyclical  law  is  the  law  of  all 
natures,  or  as  we  might  say,  the  nature  of  all  natures. 
If  we  are  not  satisfied  with  any  attempted  a  priori  proof, 
there  is  the  inductive  or  a  posteriori  argument  derived 
from  experience.  This  may  be  very  limited,  but  it  knows 
of  no  exceptions.  It  is  decidedly  against  the  doctrine  of 
any  eternal  progress  severed  from  the  idea  of  the  super- 
natural. As  far  as  we  can  judge  from  "  the  things  that 
are  seen"  this  is  the  process  of  all  natures.  They  all 
repeat  themselves ;  they  all  have  a  tendency  to  run  round 
and  run  out.  We  see  it  every  where  in  the  natural 
world.  We  discover  it,  moreover,  in  existences  of  a 
higher  character,  which  although  not  strictly  belonging 
to  the  physical  in  their  essence,  have  their  manifestation 
in  connection  with  it.     We  trace  it,  to  some  extent,  in  the 


240  MORAL  AND   SOCIAL   CYCLE&. 

moral  world,  in  social  and  political  systems,  in  psycholo- 
gical developments,  in  intellectual  and  literary  periods. 
These,  too,  have  their  growth,  maximum,  decline.  A 
nation  has  its  birth,  youth,  manhood  and  old  age.  What 
we  call  "  the  age,"  too,  presents  often  the  same  manifes- 
tations. But  in  nature  strictly,  as  far  as  our  observation 
can  extend,  there  are  no  exceptions  —  none  that  are  such 
even  in  appearance.  Some  of  the  periods  are  but  for 
moments — that  is,  moments  in  our  modes  of  estimation 
—  some  are  for  hours,  some  for  days,  for  seasons,  for 
years,  for  ages.  But  in  all  the  same  cyclical  law  reigns 
predominant.  Each  has  its  birth,  its  youth,  its  age,  its 
perfection  and  its  imperfection,  its  growth,  its  decay,  its 
reviviscence,  its  winter,  its  spring — its  evening  of  torpor 
and  repose,  its  new  morning,  when  like  the  sun  in  its 
circuit  it  again  sets  out  to  run  its  appointed  round  as  one 
of  the  lesser  wheels  in  the  Gilgal  Toledoth,*  or  great 
wheel  of  the  universal  nature. 

Unless,  therefore,  the  Scripture  expressly  contradicts, 
we  cannot  resist  the  conviction  that  would  carry  this 
analogy  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  manifestations  in 
the  physical  universe.  As  we  go  back  from  solar  days 
to  seasons,  from  seasons  to  years,  from  years  to  life-times 
of  plants  and  animals,  from  these  to  ages  that  witness 
the  growth  and  decline  of  species  and  genera,  we  cannot 
reject  the  thought  that  there  are  still  higher  days^  and 
seasons,  and  years.  God  and  nature  cannot  be  supposed 
to  stop  short  with  our  sense,  and  our  history,  and  our 

*The  name  the  Jewish  Rabbinical  writers  gave  to  the  wheel 
of  Ezekiel,  which  they  regarded  as  rex)resentative  of  the  whole 
system  of  natures. 


AGES    OF   AGES.  241 

inductions.  The  ever  widening  spiral  carries  us  upward 
to  tlie  ages  of  ages  —  the  ai'wvag  twv  a/covwv  —  possessed 
of  the  same  cycHcal  character,  and  during  which  God 
employed  the  same  cyclical  law  in  the  production  of 
worlds.  And  Scripture  does  not  forbid  it.  To  one  who 
will  read  it  aright,  the  whole  aspect  of  the  subHme 
account  in  Genesis  is  consistent  alone  with  such  a  view, 
while  it  is  greatly  aided  by  those  remarkable  expressions 
in  other  parts  of  the  Bible,  where  the  utmost  power  of 
language  seems  taxed  to  convey  an  idea  of  the  vast 
duration  of  God's  kingdom  (His  visible,  outward  dynam- 
ical kingdom)  in  the  ages  that  preceded  the  growth  of 
our  world  as  well  as  in  those  that  are  to  come. 

From  all  this  we  infer  not  only  the  fact,  but  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  repeated  creative  or  supernatural  acts ; 
and  this,  not  only  to  raise  nature  from  time  to  time  to  a 
higher  degree,  but  to  arouse  and  rescue  her  from  that 
apparent  death,  into  which,  when  left  to  herself,  she  must 
ever  fall.  The  supernatural  becomes  the  originator  of 
a  new  nature,  or  the  restorer  and  vivifier  of  an  old ;  but 
this,  too,  in  time  runs  out,  or  tends  to  run  out.  There 
comes  again  the  evening,  the  winter,  the  period  of  grow- 
ing torpor,  from  which  a  new  creative  word  alone  can 
recall  the  dying  cycle,  and  hence  the  necessity  of  such 
word,  not  only  to  the  higher  progress,  but  to  the  very 
existence  of  the  universe. 

So,  also,  in  the  moral  world.  Here,  too,  we  trace  a 
similar  analogy,  if  not  the  same  law.  In  the  moral  as 
well  as  in  the  physical  kingdom  there  is  the  extraordinary 
manifestation,  the  new  life,  the  powerful  growth,  the  appa- 
rent decay,  and  then  the  long  reign  of  ordinary  moral 
causes^  until,  when  the  spiritual  seems  almost  sunk  in  the 

21 


242  NECESSITY   OF   CREATIVE   PERIODS. 

natural,  God  comes  forth  from  the  "  hiding  place  of  his 
power,"  and  there  is  a  new  exhibition  of  the  supernatural 
word  and  supernatural  grace  reviving  every  thing  from 
its  night  of  torpor  and  decay.  It  is  something  more  than 
a  metaphor  when  such  reviviscences  are  styled  a  morn- 
ing^ and  the  period  they  usher  in  a  day, —  a  day  of  light, 
a  day  of  life,  a  day  of  power,  a  day  of  the  right  hand  of 
the  Most  High,  such  days  as  we  may  yet  expect  are 
coming  upon  the  Church  and  the  world. 

But  confining  our  attention  to  the  physical  universe, 
we  see  in  the  views  presented  in  this  chapter  a  higher 
reason  than  was  before  assigned  for  the  terms  evening 
and  morning,  day  and  night.  Not  merely  is  each  period 
considered  in  its  comparative  imperfection  an  evening  to 
the  more  perfect  that  follows,  but  there  is,  in  a  still 
more  marked  sense,  in  each  period,  considered  in  itself^ 
an  evening  and  a  morning, — a  time  of  growth  and  a 
time  of  decline,  a  time  of  energy  and  a  time  of  torpor, 
when  nature  requires  a  higher  power  to  wake  her  from 
her  commencing  slumbers.  For  facts  in  confirmation,  we 
might  appeal  to  geology  herself,  if  we  cared  at  all  about 
bringing  her  into  the  argument.  The  rocks  furnish  no 
obscure  evidence  that  the  anterior  productions  of  nature 
were  actually  in  a  course  of  degeneracy,  and  tending  to 
go  out,  when  the  higher  order  began  to  be  superinduced. 

There  is  in  the  human  mind  a  strong  disposition  to 
regard  nature  and  her  manifestations  under  this  idea  of 
greater  and  lesser  cycles.  It  came,  perhaps,  in  some 
degree  from  astronomical  observations,  but  may  also  have 
been  aided  by  some  traditional  beUef  in  successive  crea- 
tive periods.  Among  the  ancient  speculations  on  this 
head,  there  is  one  which  is  so  remarkable  that  we  would 


248 

wish  to  dwell  upon  it  at  some  length.  We  refer  to  that 
strange  mjth  of  Plato  in  the  Pohticus,  which  we  have 
given  in  another  work,  but  find  it  so  germane  to  our  pre- 
sent argument  that  we  cannot  refi:ain  from  introducing  it 
in  this  connection.  The  leading  idea,  it  will  be  seen,  is 
the  one  on  which  we  have  so  much  dwelt — the  cyclical 
alternation  of  the  natural  and  the  supernatural.  There 
is  much  extravagance  in  its  imagery,  much  that  is  incon^ 
sistent,  much  that  cannot  be  reconciled  with  any  rational 
view;  but  this  thought  is  throughout  predominant, — 
When  God  suffers  nature  to  take  her  course,  all  things 
tend  to  disorder,  decay,  and  dissolution,  when  He  resumes 
the  helm,  nature  moves  on  in  her  law  of  progress,  order 
comes  again  from  disorder,  growth  from  decay,  and  youth 
from  age. 

"  At  one  time,"  says  the  myth,*  "  God  himself  guides 
this  universe  and  turns  it  round.  Again  he  abandons  it 
to  itself  when  the  periods  of  its  destined  time  (««  'kz^Iq^oi 
Tw  flf^otfojxovToff  X^o'vou)  havo  rcccived  their  complement. 
Then  it  commences  to  move  in  a  contrary  direction,  and 
this  tendency  arises  from  an  innate  necessity  of  its  nar 
ture.  For  to  be  unchangeable,  (that  is,  ever  to  retain 
a  maximum,)  pertains  alone  to  things  divine ;  but  the 
nature  of  matter  has  no  share  in  this  dignity.  What 
we  name,  therefore,  the  Heavens  and  the  Kosmos, 
although  partaking  of  many  blessed  qualities  from  him 
who  generated  it,  still  has  communion  with  matter,  and, 
on  this  account,  cannot  be  exempt  from  change.  It  is 
in  this  way  that  it  gets  this  property  of  unrolling  or  roll- 
ing back,  consisting  at  first  in  the  shghtest  conceivable 
change  or  parallax  of  its  previous  motion.     Now,  for 

*  Pkto,  Politicus,  269  C. 


244  Plato's  myth  in  the  politicus. 

God  to  act  in  a  changeable  manner,  or  to  turn  things  at 
one  time  in  this  direction,  and  then  again  in  the  con- 
trary, is  impossible,  (ou  t)5H''?,  is  morally  impossible.) 
And,  therefore,  for  these  reasons  must  we  say  that  the 
world  neither  turns  itself,  nor  that  it  is  forever  turned 
bj  God  in  contrary  circuits.  Neither  must  we  suppose 
that  two  Gods  with  opposing  purposes  conduct  its  revolu- 
tions, but  as  has  been  said,  (and  which  in  fact  is  the 
only  supposition  left,)  that  at  one  time  it  is  guided  by  a 
divine  cause,  during  which  period  it  receives  again  the 
acquired  power  of  life,  and  an  immortahty  not  innate  but 
imparted  by  the  Demiurgus ;  and  then,  again,  that  it 
goes  by  itself,  being  left  to  itself  so  long  that  even  many 
ten  thousand  years  may  be  occupied  in  its  revolutions.'* 
The  myth  then  proceeds  to  describe  the  alternate 
cycles  or  semi-cycles.  The  first,  or  that  which  is  under 
the  direct  care  of  the  Deity,  is  the  period  of  production, 
and,  in  general,  the  order  of  all  things  is  from  death  to 
life.  It  goes  on  for  an  immense  duration,  but  at  last 
comes  to  an  end.  When  the  complement  of  the  times  is 
filled  up,  and  the  change  must  take  place,  then,  it  is 
said,  "  The  Divine  Pilot  letting  go  the  helm,  retires  to 
His  secret  place  of  obse?'vation,  and  destiny  and  innate 
tendency  (iu>cpuTog  sVi^ufx/a)  are  left  to  turn  back  the  revo- 
lutions of  the  world.  Then  commences  the  reign  of  evil. 
Nature  through  all  her  works  gives  signs  of  woe.  First 
a  strange  tremor  is  felt  in  every  part  of  the  abandoned 
world.  After  a  while,  however,  to  employ  Plato's 
imagery,  the  vessel  ceases  from  the  tumultuous  surging 
which  at  first  ensues,  and,  enjoying  a  calm,  gets  at  length 
into  the  other  movement.  This,  although  one  of  law, 
derived  from  the  still  felt  influence  of  the  former  period. 


RESEMBLANCE  TO   CREATIVE  PERIODS.  245 

is  notwithstanding  a  course  of  steady  and  constant  degen- 
eracy. Deteriorations  everywhere  take  place,  first  of  the 
vegetable,  next  of  the  animal,  and  finally  of  the  human 
race,  until  here  and  there  a  small  and  wretched  remnant 
alone  survive.  The  old  harmony,*  the  remembrance  of 
which  had  not  before  been  entirely  lost,  is  now  utterly 
extinct.  The  former  laws  of  nature  are  at  length  all 
reversed ;  until  finally,  when  the  kosmos  is  on  the  very 
verge  of  utter  ruin,  ''  God,  beholding  it  in  great  extrem- 
ity and  being  concerned  lest  by  being  overwhelmed  in 
disorder  and  utterly  dissolved,  it  should  plunge  again  into 
the  Hmitless,  formless  region  of  dissimilitude,  or  chaos, 
(s/s  Tov  TT^g  ccvo/xoioTi^Toff  a.itsi^o)j  ovTa  toVov  Svjj,^  once  more 
seats  himself  at  the  helm,  and,  having  arrested  it  in  its 
course  to  ruin,  arranges  it  again  in  order,  rectifies  it, 
and  thus  renders  it  immortal."  Plato,  PoUticus,  273  D. 
It  requires  no  very  vivid  imagination  to  see  in  Plato's 
"formless  region  of  dissunihtude "  a  striking  picture  of 
the  idea  presented  in  the  Hebrew  tohu  and  bohu,  and  in 
liis  anacyclical  revolutions  something  like  the  natural  and 
supernatural  times  we  have  regarded  as  shadowed  forth 
in  the  evening  and  morning  of  the  Mosaic  account.  Not 
that  Plato  meant  that  God  ever  wholly  abandoned  nature, 
but  that  there  are  seasons  in  which  He  is  more'especially 
present,  or  which  may  be  called  the  extra  ordinary/,  and 
that,  too,  in  the  moral  as  well  as  in  the  natural  world. 

*  By  the  old  harmony,  Plato  means  the  old  types,  or  ideas, 
which  had  not  become  wholly  obliterated,  though  greatly 
marred  and  corrupted,  in  the  universal  degeneracy.  They  are 
what  he  elsewhere  calls  the  spermatic  words  or  reasons, 
which,  by  being  deeply  implanted  in  nature,  preserve  some 
order  in  the  kosmos  long  after  the  direct  Divine  care,  or 
supernatural  impulse  had  been  withdrawn. 

21* 


CHAPTER  XX. 


WORK    OF   THE   SIXTH   DAY.      CREATION   OP  MAN. 

Man  a  special  creation. — Not  created  as  a  race. — Descent  from  a  pair, 
—The  EXPRESSION  "from  the  dust  of  the  earth." — The  true  human 
beginning  dates  from  the  spiritual  origin. — The  primus  homo. — The 
Nephesh  Haijya,  or  breath  of   life. — The   term   is    used    of  animals  as 

WELL    AS    OF     MAN. — BUT     IS    APPLIED     TO    MAN     IN    A   HIGHER    AND    PECULIAR 

SENSE. — Haijijim,  the  word   for   life,  is   plural. — Why? — Animation  of 

THE  ANIMALS  13  FROM  THE  EARTH  AND  RETURNS  TO  THE  EARTH. — ViRGIL.— 

Ecclesiastes,  III,  21. — The  divine  image.— Ground  of  the  human  dignity 

AND    immortality. — ThE    OLD   WORD    COVENANT. — LiFE   AN     INHERITANCE.— 

Salvation  a  restoration  or  redemption. 

In  what  has  been  previously  said  of  the  growth  of  plants, 
and  even  of  animals,  from  the  earth,  it  has  probably  sug- 
gested itself  to  the  reader's  mind  that  the  writer  is  on 
dangerous  ground,  or,  at  all  events,  pursuing  a  train  of 
argument  and  interpretation  which,  if  not  well  guarded, 
may  lead  to  some  most  unwelcome  conclusions.  Carry 
out  the  view,  it  may  be  said,  and  we  may  make  man  also 
a  product  of  natural  law, —  divinely  vivified  it  may  be, 
but  still,  in  some  way,  a  development,  a  growth  out  of 
the  earth  or  elements,  as  much  as  the  lately  made  acari 
of  Mr.  Cross,  if  indeed  there  is  any  such  order  in  the 
entomological  world.  But  here  again  we  say, —  keep  to 
the  only  knowledge  of  the  matter,  or  only  means  of  know- 
ledge we  have  or  ever  can  have.  Keep  to  the  record  God 
has  given  us.  Had  this  taught  us  plainly  in  respect  to 
man,  as  we  think  it  has  in  respect  to  the  plants,  and  at 
least  some  of  the  inferior  animals,  that  his  body,  or  even 
his  sentient  animal  life  had  been  a  natural  growth  devel- 
oped from  preceding  organisms,  by  a  supernatural  quicken- 


DESCENT  FROM   A  PAIR.  247 

ing  indeed,  yet  acting  upon  and  through  a  former  nature, 
we  should  have  had  no  difficulty  in  believing  it.  No 
philosophy  or  science  could  convict  it  of  irrationality  ;  no 
other  revealed  doctrine  of  faith  or  morals  would  be  weak- 
ened by  the  supposition  of  such  an  origin.  For  aU  that 
we  know,  God  could  have  made  in  this  manner  as  per. 
feet  a  primus  homo  to  stand  at  the  head  of  our  race,  as 
\>j  any  direct  or  instantaneously  miraculous  procedure. 
To  such  a  supposition,  too,  if  confirmed  from  other  sour- 
ces of  argument,  or  other  evidence  of  interpretation,  we 
should  find  nothing  repugnant  in  the  words  n^^  and  K';)a, 
(he  made  or  he  created^  as  we  have  previously  explained 
them.  They  are  only  general  modes  of  expressing  the 
fact  of  the  divine  production,  whether  such  production 
be  direct  or  through  media.  This  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  they  are  both  used  when  other  declarations  in  the 
context  leave  no  doubt  of  mediate  or  natural  agencies,  as 
we  have  defined  the  word  nature. 

In  one  respect  there  is  a  striking  difierence  between 
the  accomit  of  the  human  and  that  of  the  vegetable  and 
animal  creations.  The  two  latter  are  spoken  of  generi- 
cally  as  races,  without  the  least  reference  to  any  indivi- 
dual progenitor  or  progenitors.  In  what  is  told  us  of  the 
human  origin,  there  is  a  contrast  so  marked  that  we  can 
not  resist  the  conviction  of  its  having  been  specially 
intended.  Whatever  be  the  mode  of  production,  there 
is  no  doubt  in  respect  to  the  result  or  thing  produced. 
It  is  distmctly  said  that  God  made,  not  mm^  not  a  ra^ 
or  races,  but  two  individuals.  He  made  them  '^  in  hu 
own  image^^  and  this  remarkable  expression,  whatever 
be  its  depth  of  meaning,  makes  an  ineffaceable  distinc- 
tion between  the  human  and  all  lower  species  upon  the 


248  HUMAN   ORIGIN  OF  A  PECULIAR  KIND. 

earth.  From  the  word  tanx  (Adam)  alone,  we  could 
not  have  determined  with  certainty  that  the  account  was 
not  generic.  But  the  particulars  which  are  given  respect- 
ing the  female,  her  origin  and  estabhshed  relation  to  the 
man,  stamp  upon  the  narrative  a  character  of  individu- 
ahty  which  is  unmistakable.  The  entire  departure 
here  from  the  language  used  in  respect  to  other  races 
puts  the  meaning  beyond  all  doubt.  If  any  fact  in  crea- 
tion is  clearly  revealed,  if  there  is  any  one  placed  beyond 
all  cavil,  beyond  all  room  for  any  honest  difference  of 
interpretation,  it  is  that  the  origin  of  the  present  human 
race  was  from  one  single  pair^ 

';^  In  this  part,  then,  oTmirargument,  all  that  we  need 
contend  for  is  that  the  origin  of  man,  as  man,  was  special 
and  pecuhar.  By  this  we  mean,  his  distinctive  humanity, 
as  separate  from  all  that  he  has  in  common  with  the  lower 
natures.  We  are  not  much,  concerned  about  the  mode 
of  production  of  his  material  or  merely  physical  organiza- 
tion. In  regard  to  this  there  is  nothing  in  the  expressions 
"He  made,"  or  "  He  created  him,"  or  "  He  made  him 
from  the  earth,"  which  is  at  war  with  the  idea  of  growth, 
or  development,  during  either  a  longer  or  shorter  period. 
Ages  might  have  been  employed  in  bringing  that  mate, 
rial  nature,  through  all  the  lower  stages,  up  to  the  neces- 
sary degree  of  perfection  for  the  higher  use  that  was 
afterwards  to  be  made  of  it.  We  do  not  say  that  the 
Bible  teaches  this  ;  we  do  not  think  that  any  one  would  be 
warranted  in  putting  any  such  interpretation  upon  it. 
There  is,  however,  in  itself,  and  aside  from  any  question 
of  interpretation,  nothing  monstrous  or  incredible  in  the 
idea  that  what  had  formerly  been  the  residence  of  an 
irrational  and  groveling  tenant  might  now  be  selected 


WAS   IT   A    GROWTH?  249 

as  the  abode  of  a  higher  life,  might  be  fitted  up  in  a 
manner  corresponding  to  its  new  dignity,  might  be  made 
to  assume  an  erect  heavenward  position,  whilst  it  takes 
on  that  beauty  of  face  and  form  which  would  become  the 
new  intelligence,  and,  indeed,  be  one  of  its  necessary 
results.     The  glorified  body  of  Christ,  which  is  now  in 
the  highest  heaven,  is  linked  in  its  origin  with  our  frail, 
physical,  material,  humanity.     He  took  our  nature  into 
himself.     The  moral  and  theological  bearings  of  the  two 
cases   may  be  widely  different,  and   yet   the   physical 
connection  involved  in  the  latter  is  not  less  wonderful,  to 
say  the  least,  than  any  that  might  be  imagined  to  exist 
in  the  former  case.     A  former  physical  growth  might 
thus  have  been  taken  up  into  a  new  life.     From  an  old 
organism  there  might  thus  have  been  made  a  7iew  man. 
On  this  head,  however,  the  Bible  gives  us  no  distinct 
information.     We  can  merely  say,  it  seems  to  imply  an 
immediate  formation,  even  of  the  material  nature,  as 
though  man  were  altogether  a  new  thing  wholly  severed 
from  all  physical  connection  with  any  previous  states  of 
being;  still  the  language  is  not  inconsistent  with  the 
other  supposition.     In  fact  the  mention  of  earth  as  the 
material  from  which  the  body  was  made  (nttnNrt— )to  ^ss, 
k'lro  Trjs  yyis)  would  appear  to  intimate  some  use  of  a 
previous  nature,  together  with  the  law^s,  the  growths, 
the  affinities,  the  established  ongoings,  of  such  previous 
nature.     Such   a   making   from   material,  whatever   it 
might  be,  w^ould  either  be  a  making  according  to  the 
laws  of  that  material,  and  then  it  would  be  a  nature,  a 
growth ;  or  it  would  pay  no  respect  to  those  laws,  and 
then  it  would  be  utterly  impossible  to  discover  any  reason 
or  meaning  in  the  process.     It  is  a  war  of  ideas.     It 


/ 


250  THE  BEGINNING   OF  HUMANITY. 

would  seem  like  using  means  which  are  not  media,  causes 
which  have  no  effects,  powers  which  have  no  energy, 
material  which  is  not  material  in  any  intelligible  sense, 
(especially  when  predicated  of  the  divine  acts,)  but  a 
ca]mt  mortuum  whose  connection  with  the  resulting  pro- 
duct, if  it  can  be  said  to  have  any  connection,  is  alto- 
gether arbitrary,  magical,  idealess. 

And  yet,  be  this  growth  or  physical  origin  whatever  it 
may,  be  its  mode  ever  so  much  controlled  by  the  laws  of 
an  antecedent  nature,  be  its  duration  longer  or  shorter, 
it  does  not  at  all  necessitate  the  conclusion  which  some 
pious  minds  would  so  much  dread.  It  does  not  make 
■  man  himself  a  growth,  a  development.  Humanity  pro- 
J  per,  or  the  human  proprium,  did  not  grow,  was  no  work 
of  nature,  but  had  a  divine,  a  supernatural,  an  instanta- 
neous beginning.  There  was  a  time,  a  moment,  when 
man, —  a  man — the  primus  homo,  began  to  he,  who 
a  moment  before  was  not.  There  was  one  in  whom 
humanity  commenced,  and  from  whom  all  subsequent 
humanity  has  been  derived.  There  was  one  who  first 
began  to  be  a  man,  and  this  principium  has  its  date  from 
the  first  energizing  of  that  higher  life  which  came  from 
a  direct  inbreathing  of  the  Almighty  and  Everlasting 
Father  of  Spirits. 

There  is  no  estimating  dates  and  intervals  here.  If 
the  whole  spirit  of  the  creative  history  produces  the 
impression,  as  we  think  it  does,  of  vast  and  reciprocally 
distant  events  presented  on  one  canvas,  or  one  outhne  pic- 
ture vividly  limmed  by  a  few  graphic  words,  then,  if  there 
were  no  other  objections,  might  we  reasonably  regard 
this  part  of  the  account  as  being  in  analogy  with  all  the 
rest.     The  Hfe  by  which  the  physical  structure  became 


CREATION  OF  WOMAN.  251 

distinctively  man  may  have  been  coeval  with  the  first 
mere  animation  of  the  physical  frame,  or  it  might  have 
been  the  result  of  a  special  and  long  posterior  inspira- 
tion ;  and  this  might  have  been  "  the  becoming  a  living 
souV  in  that  higher  sense  which  would  seem  to  be 
demanded  to  make  out  the  necessary  distinction  between 
man  and  the  animals,  and  in  order  to  be  in  harmony 
with  the  more  spiritual  applications  of  the  word  life  in 
other  parts  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

Such  might  be  our  reasoning  if  we  had  no  more  in  the 
Scriptural  account  of  the  human  origin  than  is  presented 
in  the  words  and  expressions  on  which  we  have  been 
commenting.  The  declarations,  ^'' He  created^''  ''He  /^ 
made^"^  "  He  formed  from  the  earth,"  might,  as  we  have  ^ 
seen,  be  interpreted  in  perfect  consistency  with  a  long  as 
well  as  a  short,  a  mediate  as  well  as  an  immediate  pro- 
cess, an  instantaneous  production  as  well  as  a  slow  natu- 
ral growth  through  the  operation  of  natural  law.  The 
chart  has  no  dates,  the  picture  has  no  shading  from 
which  we  can  make  any  estimate  of  intervening  distances. 
But  there  is  another  part  of  the  account  which  is  not 
easy  to  reconcile  with  such  an  idea.  We  refer  again  to 
the  creation  of  woman.  The  whole  language  here  seems  . / 
to  necessitate  the  idea,  not  only  of  a  supernatural  spirit- 
uahty,  but  of  a  sudden  and  preternatural  formation  of 
the  material  organism.  If  we  are  shut  up  to  this  view, 
then  was  man  widely  distinguished  from  the  brute  crea- 
tions in  the  origin  of  his  lower  as  well  as  in  that  of  his 
higher  being.  Still,  however  formed,  there  is  a  deep 
significance  in  the  phrase,  "  from  the  dust  of  the  earth." 
High  as  may  be  our  celestial  parentage,  we  have  an 
earthly  mother.     The  most  touching  appellations  in  all 


i 


252  NEPHESH  HAYYA,   OR  SOUL   OF  LIFE. 

languages  are  expressive  of  the  idea.  Man  "  is  of  the 
earth  earthj-."  He  is  Adam,  he  is  homo,  humus,  humilis. 
If  he  has  a  spiritual  life  that  connects  him  with  the 
higher  worlds,  he  has  also  an  animal,  and  even  a  vegeta- 
ble life,  that  links  him  with  all  below. 

Be  it,  then,  when  it  may  and  how  it  may,  it  is  the 
inspiration  of  the  higher  rational  life  that  is  the  true 
beginning  of  our  distinctive  humanity.  God  breathed 
into  man  and  he  became  a  living  soul.  But  here,  too, 
the  difference  will  not  be  made  out  from  single  words  or 
phrases.  It  is  a  result  of  the  combined  force  of  the 
whole  context,  and  of  the  emphasis  it  compels  us  to  lay 
on  certain  parts.  *^  Man,"  says  the  Scripture,  "  became 
a  living  soul,''^  (^>)n  tass.)  But  the  animals,  also,  are 
styled  nephesh  hayya,  breath  of  life,  or  soul  of  life,  or 
living  soul.  It  is  the  general  term  for  animation,  like 
the  Greek  +^x*J>  '^l^^^X^s,  including  all  beyond  matter,  all 
the  immaterial  region,  whether  we  call  it  life,  sense,  feel- 
ing, thought,  or  intellect,  extending  from  the  lowest  sen- 
tient to  the  highest  rational,  and  taking  in  all  that  is 
denoted  by  the  Hebrew  £=^^n,  whose  ancient  plural  form 
in  all  the  oriental  tongues  could  only  have  arisen  from 
some  early  conception  of  higher  and  lower  degrees  as 
essentially  belonging  to  this  great  idea  or  mystery  of  Ufe. 
As  far,  then,  as  this  phrase  (nephesh  hayya)  is  con- 
cerned, we  could  predicate  of  man  no  superiority  of 
origin  or  of  psychological  rank  above  the  beast.  Every 
thing  depends  upon  the  view  we  take  of  the  different 
source /rom  which,  or  different  way  in  which  the  human 
■i'VX^,  or  nephesh  hayya,  came.  In  the  Hebrew  account, 
the  emphasis  is  not  on  the  word  for  life,  but  on  the  man- 
ner of  origination.     "  And  God  breathed  into  him  the 


THE  NEPHESH  HAYYA  OF  ANIMALS.      253 

nephesh  Tiayya  and  man  hecame^'' — that  is,  tliiis  "man 
became  a  living  soul,"  and,  of  course,  a  higher  soul  in 
proportion  to  the  more  specially  divine  and  higher  source 
from  whence  it  came.  The  animation  of  the  other  living 
creatures  was  from  the  earth,  and  through  the  earth,  by 
the  common  vivification  of  the  Spirit  in  nature,  the  Ruah 
Elohim  mentioned  in  Genesis,  i,  2, —  the  brooding,  che- 
rishing, (ri?5ii'i>3,  incuhans  f ovens ^')  life-giving,  life-sustain- 
ing spirit,  which  is  the  genial  source  of  all  physical  anima- 
tion, as  we  learn  also  from  other  parts  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Thus,  Psalms,  civ.  30,  "Thou  sendest  forth 
(h^ttjr)),  Thou  diffusest  tliy  spirit;  they  are  created; 
Thou  dost  gather  in  (t]ori)  theii'  spirit ;  they  expire  and 
return  to  their  dust."  In  this  way  the  life  of  nature 
is  originated  and  sustained ;  or,  as  the  Psalmist  says  in 
this  same  passage,  —  "  Thou  renew  est  the  face  of  the 
earth."  Animation  is  a  flood  or  stream  going  forth 
from  the  earth  and  returning  back  to  it.  It  constantly 
ebbs  and  flows  under  that  same  influence  that  first 
commenced  the  mighty  movement ;  yet  still  it  is  nature^ 
(natiira,')  a  being  horn  and  an  ever  being  about  to  be 
born.  It  is  no  profanity  to  accommodate  to  this  the 
words  of  the  Latin  poet,  seeing  that  his  thought  is  but 
the  echo  of  this  primeval  revelation,  and  if  we  except 
man  from  it,  may  be  regarded  as  almost  a  paraphrase 
of  the  language  of  Genesis  and  the  Psalmist, — 

Spiritus  intu3  alit,  totamque  infusa  per  artua 
Mens  agitat  molera,  et  raagtio  se  corpore  miscet. 
Inde  hominum  pecudumque  genus,  vitaeque  volantum, 
Et  quae  marmoreo  fert  monstra  sub  aequore  pontus. 

Virg.  iEn.  vi,  726. 

This  has  indeed  a  pantheistic  tinge,  but  only  from  its 
seeming  to  recognize  no  other  principle  than  the  anima 

22 


254    THE  ANIMAL  SOUL  RETURNS  TO  EARTH. 

mundi,  a  fault  into  which  all  apparent  theism  must  ever 
run  that  does  not  acknowledge,  in  some  way,  a  plurality 
in  the  divine  existence. 

In  such  a  view  of  the  life  of  animals  we  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  saying,  that  when  they  die,  not  only  their  bodily 
organization  but  their  spirit,  their  animating  force,  appe- 
tite, and  sentiency,  all,  in  short,  that  is  included  in  their 
nephesh  hayya,  returns  again  to  the  earth  from  which, 
and  through  which,  as  we  have  seen,  and  shown  from 
Scripture,  it  was  prime vally  horn  or  had.  its  seminal 
principium  when  God  said,  "  Let  the  earth  and  the 
waters  bring  forth."  In  other  words,  it  is  gathered  in* 
as  the  HebrQw  verb  of  the  Psalmist  expresses  it,  or  goes 
back  to  mingle  with  that  general  life  of  nature  of  which 
it  is  but  a  specific  manifestation  instead  of  being,  in  itself, 
a  divinely  constituted  personality.  Thus,  the  musing 
Hebrew  philosopher  in  Ecclesiastes,  iii,  21,  — "  Who 
knoweth  the  spirit  of  man  that  goeth  upward,  and  the 
spirit  of  the  beast  that  goeth  downward,  to  the  earth  ?" 
He  clearly  intimates  the  tradition  of  his  day,  and  does 
by  no  means  deny  the  distinction  itself,  as  some  have 
maintained.  This  he  admits  as  a  received  and  indisput- 
able truth,  as  one  of  the  settled  things  which  no  man 
called  in  question,  or  could  think  of  calling  in  question. 
He  merely  discourages  speculation  about  it ;  he  seems  to 
doubt  the  power  of  the  human  intelligence  to  trace  the 

*  The  same  word  is  used  in  respect  to  the  departure  of  the 
human  soul  ;  but  the  attentive  reader  of  the  Scriptures  cannot 
fail  to  note  the  striking  difference  in  the  context.  Man  dies 
and  is  ''gathered  to  his  fathers,"  or  "the  congregation  of  the 
fathers."  The  peculiarity  of  the  language  must  have  been 
intended  to  guard  against  this  very  thought  which  might  other- 
wise confound  him  with  the  lower  animal  natures. 


THE   HUMAN   RANK   AND   DIGNITY.  255 

pMlosophy,  or  to  give  the  rationale  of  the  wondrous  fact. 
The  animal  returns,  both  body  and  spirit,  to  the  earth ; 
or  rather  his  body  to  the  earth,  his  life  or  spirit,  to  nature. 
He  has  no  express  divine  image,  no  special  divine 
inbreathing  to  raise  him  above  the  flow  of  nature,  or 
exempt  him  from  the  operation  of  that  cyclical,  ever 
reproducing,  reabsorbing  law  which  God  has  made  the 
peculiar  characteristic  of  the  physical  world.  The  spirit 
of  man,  on  the  other  hand,  returns  to  Him  who  breathed 
it,  not  to  be  absorbed,  for  that  would  expressly  contradict 
other  parts  of  the  Scriptures,  but  to  have  its  new  spiritual 
destiny  determined  by  the  "  deeds  done  in  the  body." 

We  would  not,  however,  stop  here.  The  distinction 
between  man  and  the  lower  animal  creation  is  too  import- 
ant to  be  allowed  to  rest  on  any  merely  psychological 
differences,  be  they  of  the  most  transcendental  order. 
Reason,  conscience,  the  religious  sentiment,  do  certainly 
constitute  a  vast  superiority.  They  furnish  the  ground 
of  a  very  powerful  argument  that  a  being  so  much  above 
nature  must  survive  nature,  that  that  which  can  know 
the  eternal,  or,  in  other  words,  feed  on  immortal  truth, 
must  be  itself  immortal,  or  that  one  whom  God  has  so 
made  he  must  have  destined  for  immortality.  There  is 
a  like  powerful  argument  from  his  hopes,  his  intuitions, 
his  ever  upward  and  onward  aspirations.  The  bird  whose 
structure  and  instincts  show  that  he  is  adapted  to  another 
and  a  warmer  clime,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  will 
migrate  to  that  better  clime,  will  yet  hve  in  that  better 
clime.  So  man  will  dwell  in  another  world;  he  will 
belong  to  another  age ;  all  his  moral  and  even  intellec- 
tual wants  point  to  another  sphere  of  existence.  The 
argument  is  even  more  conclusive  for  the  spiritualist 


256  GOD   MADE   A   COVENANT   WITH   MAN. 

than  the  naturalist.  And  so  we  may  say  of  all  the  argu- 
ments that  we  have  here  mentioned.  They  are  all 
strong,  very  strong,  but  do  not  furnish  that  absolute 
ground  which  faith  demands.  By  these  higher  faculties, 
it  may  be  argued,  we  are  allied  to  the  unseen,  and  to 
that  which  is  in  its  very  essence  eternal.  By  being 
capable  of  knowing  the  true,  the  beautiful,  the  right,  our 
souls  are  in  union  with  the  everlasting  ideas,  and  so  with 
the  mind  of  God  himself.  The  argument,  we  say,  is  a 
strong  argument,  a  great  and  glorious  argument ;  we  are 
very  far  from  underrating  its  preciousness ;  but  we  can 
not  feel  it  to  be  a  perfect  demonstration.  It  may  be 
said  to  be  strong  in  itself,  or  for  some  higher  intellect,  but 
our  hold  upon  it  is  feeble,  and  often  wholly  relaxed  under 
the  influence  of  sense  and  animality.  We  need  some- 
thing else  on  which  to  rest  the  true  view  of  the  human 
dignity,  or  a  firm  and  constant  belief  in  the  exceeding 
preciousness  of  the  human  existence.  This,  we  think, 
the  Bible  furnishes  in  the  very  account  of  man's  creation, 
and  especially  in  the  narrative  of  subsequent  transactions 
between  the  new  created  being  and  his  condescending 
Creator.  What  the  highest  psychological  view  fails  to 
give  us  is  found  in  that  old  word,  which  although  once  so 
prominent  and  so  significant,  has  almost  every  where 
dropped  out  of  our  modern  theology.  It  is  the  word 
"  covenayit^''  tr'ia,  5»a^/>7],  foedus^  promissum, —  the  word 
that  occurs  so  often  in  the  Bible,  and  which  the  inspired 
writers  are  so  fond  of  employing  to  denote  the  highest, 
as  well  as  the  most  intimate,  relation  between  God  and 
the  human  race.  He  created  man ;  he  breathed  into 
him  the  breath  of  life;  more  than  this,  or  in  a  sense 
higher  than  the  term  would  bear  when  applied  to  the 


THIS  HIS  TITLE  TO   IMMORTALITY.  257 

animals,  he  made  this  inspiration  or  inbreathing  to  bo 
the  medium  of  endowment  with  moral,  rational,  and  reli- 
gious faculties ;  still  more  than  this, — over  all,  and  above 
all,  he  made  a  covenant  with  him.  The  word  is  not  in 
the  first  of  Genesis,  but  its  spirit  is  there,  and  the  term 
itself  is  most  expressly  predicated  of  the  transaction 
when  referred  to  in  other  parts  of  the  Old  Testament. 
He  placed  him  on  a  higher  ground  than  that  of  natural 
law,  or  natural  right  deduced  by  the  reason  from  man's 
relation  to  the  universe,  or  what  might  be  called,  in  its 
highest  sense,  the  universal  nature  of  things.  He  enters 
into  an  agreement,  a  covenant,  with  this  "frail  child  of 
dust,"  and  thus  gives  him  a  legal,  a  forensic  right, — 
makes  him  a  son,  "  an  heir  of  glory."  By  the  very  act 
of  such  a  covenant  he  brings  him  nigher  to  himself;  he 
elevates  him  for  that  purpose  to  a  platform  on  which  the 
finite  and  infinite  intelligence  may  converse  together,  and 
be,  for  the  occasion,  parties  in  the  same  voluntary  spirits 
ual  transaction.  He  thus  places  him  above  nature,  not 
merely  in  his  psychological  constitution,  but  in  his  objec- 
tive relation  to  the  divine.  Here,  then,  is  the  crowning 
distinction  between  man  and  the  physical  world  in  all  its 
grades  of  existence.  True  it  is,  that  in  the  Bible,  even 
natural  law  is  sometimes  called  a  covenant,  as  in  Jere- 
miah, xxxiii,  20,  25,  where  we  have  the  expression  "  my 
covenant  of  the  day  and  of  the  night,"  used  as  synonymous 
with  the  ordinances  or  physical  laws  of  the  heavens ;  but 
in  such  cases  the  language  is  evidently  figurative,  and 
derived  by  way  of  analogy  from  the  higher  idea.  With 
man  it  is  a  real  covenant.  When  applied  to  the  human 
race,  or  to  any  elect  family  of  the  race,  it  is  taken  in  its 
most  direct  and  literal  sense.    The  transaction  belongs 

22* 


258  COVENANT,  HIGHER  THAN  NATURE, 

to  a  higher  world  of  thought  and  being.  It  brings?  in  a 
higher  class  of  ideas.  In  nature  and  natural  relations 
there  are  forces,  gravities,  attractions,  affinities,  and,  as 
we  approach  its  department  of  life  and  sentiency,  appe- 
tites, instincts,  susceptibihties ;  in  the  covenant  there  are 
parties,  promises,  agreements,  oaths,  conditions,  impera- 
tives, fulfilments,  forfeitures,  penalties,  and  rewards.  It 
is  the  glory  of  the  human  soul,  that  unUke  the  animal,  it 
can  be  in  this  forensic  or  covenant  relation  to  the  uni- 
versal  law-giver.  Deity  binds  himself  to  give  his  crea- 
ture life  and  immortality.  He  makes  the  loss  of  them, 
or  the  deterioration  of  them,  to  depend,  not  on  any  phy- 
sical law,  (except  we  regard  such  physical  law  as  the 
appointed  executioner  of  the  positive  legal  sentence,)  but 
upon  the  moral  forfeiture  of  the  condition  through  the 
observance  of  which  there  was  to  be  secured  eternal  life. 
It  is  thus  in  this  subsequent  transaction  in  Eden  we 
find  the  true  ground  of  our  surest  belief  in  the  human 
dignity  and  immortahty.  In  the  words  of  our  noblest 
catechism,  confirmed  by  the  spirit  and  letter  of  Holy 
Writ,  "  God  made  a  covenant  of  fife  with  Adam,  the  first 
man,  both  for  himself  and  all  his  posterity,  on  condition 
of  obedience ;"  and  when  that  was  broken  a  similar  mode 
is  pursued  for  the  human  restoration.  A  new  and  better 
covenant  is  entered  into  mth  the  New  Man  who  repre- 
sents the  new  humanity.  It  is  this  which  gives  signifi- 
cance and  vividness  to  the  whole  language  employed 
respecting  human  salvation.  The  idea  of  covenant  ap- 
pears throughout.  Everything  is  federative  and  forensic. 
The  recovery  of  the  soul  is  its  redemption.  Salvation  is 
heirship ;  justification  or  righteousness  is  a  title  to  an 
inheritance  purchased  and  paid  for  by  the  covenanting 


i 


THE  KESTORED   COVENANT.  259 

head.  But  we  would  not  farther  pursue  the  train  of 
thought  in  this  connection.  It  has  been  dwelt  upon 
because  of  the  strong  tendency  among  modern  theological 
writers,  even  when  they  style  themselves  evangehcal,  to 
place  the  relations  between  God  and  man  on  the  general 
basis  of  "  the  nature  of  things,"  and  to  determine  the 
human  place  therein  as  made  out  by  reason  and  philoso- 
phy in  distinction  from,  if  not  in  opposition  to,  that 
express  revelation  which  constitutes  the  covenant  idea. 
When  carefully  analyzed,  the  former  process  will  be 
found  to  be  a  tracing  of  man's  obligation  to  the  universe, 
rather  than  to  God  the  sovereign  law-giver  of  the  uni- 
verse. Covenant  was  a  famous  word  among  the  theolo- 
gians of  past  centuries.  We  would  venture  to  say  that 
the  Church  must  return  to  it,  or  all  that  is  peculiar  in 
revelation  and  Christianity  will  be  merged  in  a  lifeless, 
unscriptural  system  of  natural  theology,  or  some  still 
colder  system  of  natural  ethics. 

We  have  the  more  confidence  in  this,  because  it  is  the 
very  argument  that  Christ  urged  against  the  naturaliz- 
ing Sadducees.  He  confutes  them  not  with  psycholo- 
gical or  metaphysical  reasonings,  but  with  arguments 
drawn  from  the  Scripture,  from  its  historical  facts  show- 
ing God's  method  of  dealing  with  men,  or  the  true 
grounds  of  the  human  dignity  and  immortality.  "  But 
concerning  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  have  ye  never 
read  in  the  book  of  Moses,  how  God  said  to  him — I  am 
the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God 
of  Jacob :  He  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  liv- 
ing." All  here  is  placed  on  the  ground  of  covenant. 
He  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living.  He 
does  not  deal  thus  with  the  inanimate  or  merely  animal 


260  CHRIST  AND  THE   SADDUCEES. 

existences.  With  them,  all  is  nature  and  natural  law. 
They  are  assigned  to  this  department  and  can  never 
transcend  it.  With  man,  on  the  other  hand,  all  is  by 
virtue  of  the  covenant,  whether  regarded  as  made  with 
the  universal  head  of  the  race,  or  the  federal  progenitor 
of  any  particular  seed  whether  natural  or  spiritual. 
His  dignity,  his  immortality,  his  rights,  his  forfeitures, 
his  condemnation,  as  well  as  his  salvation,  are  all  placed 
on  this  ground,  and  have  all  their  strength  and  signifi- 
cance from  this  higher  relation. 


CHAPTER  XXL 


THE   SEVENTH  DAY.      ARGUMENT   FROM   THE   SABBATH. 

Commencement  of  the  Sabbath  in  the  evening. — Does  it  still  continue? 
The  less  a  type  of]  the  gkeateh. — The  solar  a  type  of  the  ^onic  ob 

OLAMIC  period. — OBJECTION  STATED. — JEWISH  HEBDOMADS. — WEEKLY,  SEP- 
TENNIAL, PENTECO.STAL. — DaVID  PaBEUS. — AUGUSTINE. — PaTBISTIC  IDEA  OF 
THE    SEVEN     AGES     OF    THE    WOELD. — We    ARE   IN  THE  SaBBATH   EVE    OF  THE 

WORLD. — The  Sabbath  morning  the  latter  day  glory  of  the  church. 
Objection  from  the  language  or  the  fourth  commandment, — Answer 
to  it. 

The  most  plausible  objection  to  the  view  we  have  taken 
of  the  mdefinite  periods  is  derived  from  the  mention  of 
the  Sabbath.  Man  was  created  at  the  close  of  the  sixth 
day,  just  before,  or  at,  the  evening  which  was  the  true 
commencement  of  the  Sabbath.  If  we  reckon  steadily 
and  consistently  from  the  beginning,  such  must  be  the 
result  of  our  computation.  The  first  day  commenced 
in  the  night  or  evening ;  such,  therefore,  must  have  been 
the  beginning  of  all  the  rest.  And  this  is  the  reason 
why  the  Septuagint,  the  Syriac,  and  the  Samaritan  ver- 
sions have  it  that  God  finished  his  work  on  the  sixth 
day,  instead  of  the  seventh,  as  it  is  in  the  Hebrew  and 
the  Vulgate.  They  mean  the  same  thing,  or  would 
present  the  same  date  under  a  different  view  of  its  rela- 
tive position. 

The  human  race,  then,  commenced  its  being  with  the 
Sabbath  of  the  world.  It  was  the  closing  act  in  the 
great  series.     Creation  was  finished,  and  God  ceased,  or 


262  DOES   THE   SABBATH   STILL   CONTINUE? 

rested,  from  his  work.  This  ceasing  from  creation  was 
the  beginning  of  that  Sabbath, —  the  Sabbath  of  God. 
Did  it  terminate  at  the  end  of  twentj-four  hours,  or  is  it 
yet  continuing  ?     This  is  the  great  question. 

The  argument  on  the  other  side  runs  thus :  If  the 
seventh  was  a  natural  day  of  twenty-four  hours,  so  must 
have  been  the  six  preceding :  but  that  the  seventh 
must  have  been  a  natural  solar  day  of  twenty-four  hours, 
we  know  from  its  being  the  beginning  and  the  rule  of 
reckoning  for  our  current  Sabbaths  appointed  in  memory 
of  its  divine  observance.  We  have  stated  the  argument  in 
its  strongest  and  most  plausible  form.  The  fallacy  is  in 
the  second  clause.  It  has  been  well  presented  by  Hugh 
Miller,  in  his  ''  Footsteps  of  the  Creator,"  but  we  will 
endeavor  to  give  it  in  the  form  in  which  it  comes  with 
most  force  to  our  own  mind.  If  the  Sabbath  was  a  natural 
solar  day,  so  were  all  the  rest.  This  is  clear  enough, — 
but  may  we  not  invert  the  argument  ?  God  rested  on 
the  seventh  day.  Have  we  heard  of  his  resuming  his 
labors  ?  —  we  mean  in  the  work  of  creation ;  for  in  his 
works  of  providence  "  He  hath  worked  hitherto,  and  yet 
worketh."  These  acts  do  not  break  the  Sabbath  any  more 
than  man's  works  of  mercy  and  duty  are  a  violation  of 
the  typical  hebdomadal  rest.  Was  then  this  Sabbath — 
God's  Sabbath,  we  mean, — the  Sabbath,  or  rest,  from 
creation, —  twenty-four  hours  long  ?  Did  it  have — has 
it  had — its  evening  and  its  morning,  as  we  are  told  of 
the  others  ?     Did  Deity  resume  His  work  on  the  eighth 


These  questions  seem  to  us  to  have  pertinency,  and  to 
come  directly  out  from  the  whole  analogy  of  the  account. 
God  rested  on  the  seventh  day.     So  far  we  interpret 


OBJECTION   AND   ANSWER.  268 

Scripture  alike.  Has  that  rest  or  Sabbath  of  the  Lord 
yet  ceased  ?  If  not,  then  we  turn  the  argument  directly 
round.  The  seventh  was,  or  rather  is,  a  long,  indefinite 
or  unmeasured  period,  and,  therefore,  of  the  same  kind 
were  all  the  rest.  We  are  aware  how  very  much  depends 
on  the  prepossessions  and  aspects  under  which  we  view 
the  position.  Some  may  not  understand  the  state- 
ment ;  others  may  see  no  force  in  it,  or  may  regard  the 
question  as  entirely  irrelevant,  but  to  one  who  looks  from 
a  different  stand-point  there  is  not  only  no  inconsistency, 
but  a  great  and  glorious  beauty,  a  beauty  worthy  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  of  the  great  plan  upon  which  all  its 
dispensations  are  revealed  to  us,  in  the  less  being  thus 
made  a  memorial  of  the  greater — the  weekly  Sabbath 
made  by  the  sun  thus  symbolizing  and  ever  calling  to 
mind  the  great  Sabbath,  the  great  rest  of  God,  which,  as 
far  as  respects  the  physical  world,  yet  continues.  The 
physical  creation  yet  rests;  although  we  may  soberly 
entertain  the  thought,  that  in  the  work  of  redemption 
there  may  have  been  a  new  day  of  the  Lord,  to  be  reck- 
oned in  the  greater  calendar^  and  a  change  of  Sabbath 
corresponding  to  it  in  the  reduced  scale  of  our  solar 
diurnal  periods, — just  as  the  great  degrees  of  latitude 
and  longitude  have  their  representatives  in  the  divisions 
of  the  chart,  or  the  great  orbits  of  the  heavens  their 
exact  ratios  in  the  circles  and  angles  of  the  orrery. 

Such  a  representation  of  the  greater  by  the  less  may 
be  regarded  as  not  obscurely  shadowed  forth  in  the 
ascending  scales  of  the  Jewish  Sabbaths  —  the  seventh 
solar  day — the  seventh  week  of  the  pentecostal  cycle — 
the  seventh  or  sabbatical  year, — the  seventh  septenary 
of  years, — until  we  come  to  the  great  rest  of  the  jubilee. 


264  ENLARGING  JEWISH  HEBDOMADS. 

The  cyclical  repetitions  stop  here  in  the  human  scale  of 
revelation,  for  language  is  finite,  and  the  human  concep- 
tive  powers  grow  weary ;  but  surely  the  thought  is  some- 
thing more  than  a  capricious  fancy,  that  these  few  terms, 
so  regularly  enlarging  as  they  ascend,  may  suggest  a 
higher  series  of  still  vaster  expansion.  Having  mounted 
through  the  trinal  grade,  the  mind  finds  a  difficulty  in 
abruptly  stopping  with  the  earthly  jubilee.  The  less  will 
bring  in  the  thought  of  the  greater.  The  sabbatical  day, 
the  sabbatical  year,  the  sabbatical  jubilee,  are  images  of 
things  in  the  heavens ;  their  shadows  are  thrown  back 
upon  the  past,  and  forward  upon  the  future  ;  they  typify 
the  great  years  of  God's  existence,  the  septenaries  of 
ages  and  aeons,  those  ever  enlarging  cycles  that  we  may 
soberly  regard  as  the  measures — not  of  eternity  abso- 
lutely, which  is  immeasurable, — but  of  those  higher 
workings  and  intermissions  which  belong  to  God's  highest 
government  in  time  and  space. 

We  are  fond  of  consulting,  on  this  and  kindred  ques- 
tions, the  writings  of  the  older  commentators,  who  lived 
before  any  of  the  discoveries  of  modern  science.  What 
makes  some  of  these  works  the  most  important  helps  in 
a  philological  point  of  view,  giving  them  a  value  in  this 
respect  surpassing  that  of  our  most  lauded  modern  criti- 
cism, is  the  fact  to  which  we  have  before  adverted. 
They  never  overlook  anything  in  the  text.  This  care- 
fulness results  from  their  greater  faith.  It  comes  from 
their  unwavering  belief  that  there  is  meaning,  important 
meaning,  in  every  jot  and  tittle  of  the  Divine  Word. 
Hence  they  see  more  than  many  modern  commentators, 
not  only  in  the  affirmations,  but  in  the  silence  of  Scrip- 
ture.    We  have  already  alluded  to  this  in  the  case  of 


OLDER   COMMENTATORS.  265 

Augustine.  His  attention  is  arrested  bj  the  remarkable 
omissions,  as  well  as  by  the  remarkable  declarations  of 
the  Bible  narrative.  Thus,  for  example,  in  each  of  the 
first  six  days,  there  is  a  steady  and  similarly  repeated 
mention  of  an  evening  and  a  morning  as  constituting  the 
important  elements  of  each  period.  In  the  account  of 
the  seventh,  all  this  is  strangely  omitted.  Its  invariable 
repetition  in  the  preceding  days  is  inconsistent  with  the 
supposition  that  the  omission  was  accidental ;  and  the 
whole  style  of  the  narrative  forbids  the  idea  that  it  was  for 
the  sake  of  any  epitomal  conciseness.  It  must  have  been 
thought  of,  and  designed  by,  the  writer.  Now  many 
a  modern  commentator  passes  this  all  over  without  a  re- 
mark. But  how  different  the  course  of  this  ancient  father  ? 
Not  only  does  he  find  a  rich  meaning  in  every  word 
and  phrase,  but  he  also  devotes  a  chapter  to  an  enquiry 
into  the  reason  of  this  strange  break  in  the  previous  order 
of  the  wonderful  narrative.  In  such  attempts  there  are, 
it  is  true,  many  things  which  are  not  entitled  to  consider- 
ation, but  there  is  also,  oftentimes,  a  profoundness  of 
meaning,  which,  although  it  might  not  have  been  thought 
of  by  us,  carries  with  it,  when  presented,  an  impress  of 
the  soundest  rationality.  Similar  examples  may  be  found 
among  commentators  who  followed  after  the  reformation, 
and  who  have  exhibited  much  of  this  trait  of  the  patristic 
style.  Among  others  we  might  refer  to  David  Parous, 
an  old  German  divine  of  the  sixteenth  century,  whose 
commentary  on  Genesis  we  have  found  it  interesting  and 
instructive  to  consult.  In  his  remarks  on  this  part  of  the 
first  chapter,  he  states  the  question  that  had  been  raised 
by  Augustine,  why  nothing  is  said  of  the  evening  and 
morning  of  the  seventh  as  well  as  of  the  other  days, — 

23 


266       NO   MENTION   OF   EVENING   AND   MORINNGf. 

"  De  septlmo  die  quaeritur  an  fuerit  a  Deo  creatus,  et 
cur  nihil  dicatur  de  ejus  vespera  et  mane  ut  in  diehus 
aliis.^^  The  first  of  these  questions  he  answers  with  a 
metaphysical  reason.  It  was  created  in  its  causes,  he 
says — Fuit  creatus  in  suis  causis,  hoc  est,  in  motu  coeli 
et  solis,  die  quarto.  The  other  is  more  difficult.  The 
mornings  and  evenings  of  the  first  three  days,  he  main- 
tains, must  have  been  made  by  a  miraculous  expansion 
and  contraction  of  the  light,  those  of  the  three  following, 
by  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun.  But  still  there 
must  be  some  reason  why  there  is  no  mention  of  a  morn- 
ing and  evening  to  this  seventh  day ;  especially  since,  in 
other  respects,  there  is  ^iven  of  it  so  stridng  and  distinct 
an  account.  The  only  conclusion  he  can  come  to  is  this. 
As  this  first  Sabbath  was  the  peculiar  Sabbath  of  God 
and  angels,  it  is  kept  open,  as  it  were,  for  the  saints,  so 
that  what  is  now  begun  here  will  then  be  finished  when 
we  attain  to  the  eternal  rest  from  sin, —  Septimus  dies 
est  Sabbathum  proprium  dei  angelorum  et  sanctorum 
in  coelis ;  quod  in  nobis  esse  nunc  inchoatur,  tandem 
vero  perficietur,  quando  perpetuam  a  peccatis  requiem 
agemus.     Parei  Comment,  in  Genesin,  Ch.  ii,  v.  2. 

There  is  a  metaphysical  aspect  to  the  reason  assigned. 
It  would  seem  to  regard  this  first  or  divine  Sabbath  as 
not  coming  strictly  under  the  category  of  time,  at  least 
in  its  ordinary  measurements,  but  as  belonging,  some 
how,  to  a  higher  sphere,  from  whence  it  has  its  temporal 
representative  projected  upon  the  scale  of  our  lower  plane 
in  time  and  space.  We  attach  value  to  it  only  as  show^ 
ing  how  a  deep  and  devout  thinker,  havmg  no  other 
motive  than  a  desire  to  discover  the  internal  consistency 
of  Scripture,  and  influenced  by  no  ab-extra  considerations, 


SEVEN  AGES  OF  THE  WORLD.         267 

would  be  led,  from  the  very  text,  to  regard  this  seventh 
day,  and  of  course,  all  the  rest,  as  having  an  anomalous 
character,  not  to  be  judged  by  ideas  derived  from  a  sub- 
sequent regulated  condition  of  things. 

The  same  inference  may  be  drawn  from  the  speculation 
among  some  of  the  Fathers  respecting  the  seven  days  of 
creation,  as  representative  of  the  supposed  seven  ages  of 
the  world.  It  may  be  found  set  forth  in  Augustine's 
Treatise  De  Genesi  Contra  Manichaeos,  Lib.  I,  Ch.  xxiii, 
— Video  enim  per  totum  textum  divinarum  Scrip turarum 
sex  quasdam  aetates  operosas  certis  quasi  limitibus  suis 
esse  distinctas  ut  m  septima  speretur  requies ;  et  easdem 
sex  aetates  habere  similitudinem  istorum  sex  dicrum  in 
quibus  ea  facta  sunt,  quae  Deum  fecisse  Scriptura  com- 
memorat.  Primordia  enim  generis  humani,  in  quibus 
ista  luce  frui  coepit,  bene  comparantur  primo  diei  quo 
fecit  Deus  lucem.*  The  first  mundane  age  extends  from 
Adam  to  Noah,  over  which  comes  the  night  of  the  dehige, 
quasi  vespera  hujus  diei.  The  second  age  has  for  its 
evening  the  confusion  of  tongues.  The  dawn  of  the 
third  is  the  calling  of  Abraham,  and  the  separation  of 
him  from  his  people  ;  and  so  on.  Such  a  division  may 
be  regarded  as  all  fancy.  We  attach  importance  only 
to  the  mode  of  thinking  and  interpretation  from  which  it 
comes.     It  matters  not,  too,  whether  those  who  hold  this 

*  ' '  For  I  see  through  the  whole  text  of  the  Divine  Scrip- 
ture, six  ages  of  the  world's  labor,  as  it  were,  distinctly 
bounded,  so  that  there  might  be  hope  of  a  rest  in  the  seventh  ; 
also,  that  these  same  six  ages  have  a  likeness  to  those  days 
in  which  all  those  things  were  made,  which  the  Scripture 
declares  that  God  made.  For  the  origin,  or  first  times,  of  the 
human  race,  in  which  it  began  to  enjoy  the  light,  is  well 
compared  to  that  first  day  in  which  God  made  the  light." 


268  VALUE  OF  THESE   OLD   OPINIONS. 

view,  had  any  definite  thought  of  a  longer  or  shorter 
duration,  or  of  any  duration  at  all.  They  saw  that  there 
was  something  remarkable,  something  extrarordinary, 
about  these  days.  This  aj^peared  on  the  face  of  the 
text,  without  the  suggestion  of  any  scientific  knowledge, 
or  theory,  which  might  have  given  a  direction  to  their 
contemplations.  Having,  therefore,  nothing  of  this  latter 
clue  to  guide  them  in  explaining  the  mysterious  language, 
they  ran  into  the  allegorical,  the  mystical,  the  metaphy- 
sical. We  quote  them  here,  as  we  have  done  before, — 
and  the  point  cannot  be  too  strongly  urged, — for  the 
purpose  of  showing  that  this  easy  taking  for  granted  that 
the  Mosaic  periods,  and  especially  the  seventh,  were,  of 
course,  common  solar  days  of  exactly  twenty-four  hours 
each,  neither  more  nor  less,  is  alien  to  the  spirit  of 
ancient  interpretations  brought  out  long  before  there  had 
been  the  first  conception  of  such  a  science  as  geology,  or 
of  any  scientific  objections  to  anything  that  might  be 
regarded  as  the  literal  meaning  of  the  passage.  It  is 
worthy  of  note,  too,  that  what  with  some  of  the  present 
day  is  so  very  easy,  was  with  them  their  chief  diSiculty. 
They  could  not  understand  the  Sabbath  from  creation  as 
a  common  day,  and  were,  therefore,  driven  to  regard  all 
the  rest  as  anomalous. 

A  similar  suo;o;estion  comes  from  another  ancient 
notion,  mentioned  by  Augustine,  that  the  days  of  crea- 
tion were  representative  of,  and  represented  by,  the 
supposed  seven  stages  in  human  life,  such  as  birth, 
infancy,  youth,  etc.  It  shows  the  same  tendency.  It 
comes  from  the  laws  of  our  thinking,  thus  to  carry  the 
analogies  of  the  human  life  and  growth,  whether  generic 
or  individual,  into  the  greater  creations,  and  to  regard 


THE   SEVEN   PERIODS   OF   HUMAN   LIFE.  269 

the  world,  too,  as  a  series  of  growths,  or  natures,  with  its 
periods  of  birth,  of  infancy,  of  youth,  of  maturity, —  with 
its  mornings,  its  evenings,  its  spring,  its  autumn,  its  long 
winters  of  repose,  its  summers  of  reviviscence,  correspond- 
ing to  the  shorter  cycles  of  the  animal  and  vegetable 
natures  that  exist  upon  it.  It  shows,  too,  what  is  of 
more  importance  in  our  exegesis,  that  the  anomalous 
style  of  the  narrative  is  felt  to  be  in  harmony  with  such 
analogies,  and  that  what  is  now  called  by  many  the  most 
natural  is,  in  truth,  the  most  forced  and  unnatural  inter- 
pretation. Such  has  been  the  impression  it  has  made  on 
minds  of  the  most  varied  constitution  and  temperament. 
To  zealous  students  of  the  Bible  in  all  ages,  whether 
mystics  like  Philo,  or  philosophic  theologians  like  Augus- 
tine, or  practical  matter  of  fact  men  like  the  historian 
Josephus,  or  of  the  higher  order  of  rationalizing  critics 
like  the  Jewish  Maimonides,  there  has  ever  seemed 
something  out  of  the  usual  line  of  interpretation  in  the 
Mosaic  account  of  the  world's  origin.  It  was  to  them  the 
narrative  of  great  events  that  have  their  correspondences, 
but  no  identical  repetitions  either  in  the  time  or  space  of 
the  present  mundane  age.  It  was  a  history  of  great 
events  that  took  place,  in  fact,  before  our  present  sun- 
measured  time  began,  and  therefore,  they  could  not  help 
regarding  it  as  having  a  meaning  to  which  we  can  only 
approach  by  analogies  wholly  time-transcending,  or  tran- 
scending all  its  ordinary  estimates. 

Much  more  may  we  say  this  in  reference  to  the  seventh 
day  specially.  Augustine,  and  Parous,  and  the  whole 
class  of  profound  and  learned  commentators  whom  they 
may  be  said  to  represent,  have  their  attention  drawn  to 
points  in  the  narrative, — whether  assertions  or  omissions 

23* 


270  WHAT  IS  THE   SABBATH  MORNING? 

— which  the  rationalizing  critic  passes  by  unheeded. 
Interpreters  of  the  former  stamp  set  out  with  the  axiom 
that  the  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration,  and  that  there 
must,  therefore,  have  been  a  design  in  everything  that 
relates  to  its  style,  its  language,  its  choice  of  words,  its 
imagery,  and,  in  general,  its  whole  mode  of  communica- 
tion to  the  souls  of  men.  Hence  they  are  struck  with 
this  change  in  the  account  of  the  seventh  day.  There 
must  be  some  reason  for  this  remarkable  omission  of 
what  had  been  so  regularly  repeated  at  the  close  of  all 
the  preceding  epochs.  There  must  be  some  sense,  at 
least,  in  which  this  first  Sabbath  is  not  yet  finished.  But 
if  we  put  out  of  view  the  inadequate  theory  of  the  twen- 
ty-four solar  hours,  or  disencumber  ourselves  of  the  imped- 
iments that  come  from  so  narrow  an  interpretation,  the 
whole  difficulty  vanishes.  What  other  reason  could 
there  have  been  for  the  omission,  than  that  this  seventh 
day  or  period  had  not  yet  come  to  a  close  ?  Even  its 
morning  had  not  yet  arrived.  We  are  still  in  the  Sab- 
bath eve,  unless  Christ's  ascension  were  its  terminating 
€ra.  But  what  that  Sabbath  morning  may  be,  we  must 
learn  from  the  Scriptures  or  never  know  at  all.  The 
Bible  speaks  of  "  the  morning  of  the  resurrection."  Is 
it  a  mere  figure,  or  something  more  than  a  figure,  —  a 
reality  transcending  in  literal  and  substantial  glory  any 
of  the  matutinal  periods  of  the  earth's  early  physical 
formation  ?  There  is  the  "  morning  when  the  upright 
shall  have  the  dominion,"  which  dominion  may  be  on  this 
very  planet.  Or  if  this  is  thought  to  have  too  much 
difficulty  attending  it,  there  is  also  that  morning  of  the 
latter  day  glory  whose  auroral  efiulgence  is  so  vividly 
pictured   by   the   rapt   Hebrew    Seers, —  that   glorious 


LATTER  DAY   GLORY   OF  THE   CHURCH.  271 

morning  when  "Zion  shall  have  put  on  her  beautiful  gar- 
ments," her  spotless  Sabbath  robes, —  when  the  Church, 
for  which  the  earth  was  made,  "  shall  arise  and  shine, /or 
her  Light  has  come  and  the  glory  of  her  Lord  has  risen 
upon  her," — "  when  nations  shall  go  by  her  light  and 
kings  by  the  splendor  of  her  rising,"— when  her  risen 
"  sun  shall  never  more  go  down,  for  the  Lord  shall  be 
her  everlasting  light*  and  her  God  her  glory."  Instead 
of  mediate  or  reflexive  illumination  through  the  heavenly 
bodies, 

"The  Light  Himself  shall  shine 
Revealed, — and  God's  Eternal  Day  be  thine." 

All  this  is  metaphor,  it  may  be  said,  but  how  shall  we 
decide  which  is  the  primary,  and  which  the  secondary, 
or  metaphorical,  sense  of  these  words  ?  How  is  it  that 
there  is  hardly  a  language — perhaps  no  language — in 
which  words  for  light  and  truth,  seeing  and  knowing^ 
are  not  from  the  same  or  kindred  roots  ?  And  this  is 
the  Apostle's  definition, —  -n-av  ya.^  to  (pave^oufxsvov  (pwff  ^dri, 
^^For  whatsoever  doth  make  manifest  is  light, ''^  Ephe- 
sians,  v,  13 ;  that  is,  whatsoever  reveals  or  causes  to 
appear  that  which  before  was  hidden,  non-existent,  or 

♦Isaiah,  Ix,  19,  caMy  -^Sr,  cpu>s  tt.\'2vog,  The  light  of  her 
eternity,  her  age,  her  olam.  Any  one  who  examines  the 
passage  must  see  that  the  word  is  in  strong  contrast  with  the 
terms  expressive  of  times  measured  by  the  sun  and  moon  in 
distinction  from  the  greater  sign  of  duration,  or  the  greater 
light  of  the  olamic  period.  "  The  sun  shall  be  no  more  thy 
light  by  day,  nor  the  moon  thy  splendor  by  night ;  but  the 
Lord  shall  be  thine  eternal  light.  Or,  as  it  is  given  in  the 
noble  Vulgate  translation  of  the  passage,  — **  Non  est  tibi  am- 
plius  sol  ad  lucendum  per  diem,  nee  splendor  lunae  illumina- 
bit  te ;  sed  erit  tibi  Dominus  in  lucem  sempiternam,  et  Deus 
tuus  in  gloriam  tuam. 


272         WHATEVER  MAKES  MANIFEST  IS  LIGHT. 

unseen^  whether  in  the  physical,  the  intellectual,  or  the 
spiritual  world. 

In  such  a  view  as  this,  however,  everything  depends 
upon  the  position  to  which  we  attain  in  the  interpretation 
of  Genesis.  When  the  language  there  employed  readily 
and  naturally  suggests  to  us  the  ideas  of  successive 
risings  in  the  scale  of  creations,  it  is  easy  to  transfer  the 
same  train  of  thought,  without  any  consciousness  of 
change  in  style,  to  this  later  and  more  glorious  olam. 
We  may  conjecture,  too,  whence  the  Prophets  derived 
this  favorite  imagery  of  the  greater  day  and  the  greater 
light  as  compared  with  the  sun-measured  and  moon-mea- 
sured seasons.  In  such  a  panorama,  the  universal  exist- 
ence presents  itself  to  us  as  an  ascending  series  of  morn- 
ings, manifestations,  or  appearings,  from  the  lowest  physi- 
cal to  the  highest  spiritual.  There  is  a  continual  coming 
forth  from  the  before  "  unseen^  There  is  the  appearing 
of  the  natural  light  out  of  chaos,  the  appearing  of  the 
dry  land  out  of  the  watery  wastes,  the  appearing  of  the 
expanse  or  firmament,  with  its  apparatus  for  the  ferti- 
lization of  the  earth,  the  appearing  of  the  season-divid- 
ing celestial  luminaries,  the  appearing  of  vegetable  life, 
of  animal  life,  of  rational  life, —  and  finally  that  for 
which  all  the  rest  are  preparatory,  the  manifestation  of 
the  new  life  in  Christ,  and  of  the  moral  glory  of  God  in 
"  the  new  heavens  and  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  right- 
eousness." There  is  no  break  in  the  upward  continuity, 
no  proceeding  per  saltum,  no  awful  chasm  of  all  created 
being,  to  the  dread  brink  of  which  the  history  of  a  brief 
six  thousand  years  conducts  us  dimly  back  only  to  find 
it  descending  rapidly  off  by  a  few  short  diurnal  steps  int-o 
the  utter  blank  of  an  ante-past  eternity.     On  the  other 


THE   SURER   LIGHT,   THE   MORE   REAL   DAY.        273 

view,  everything,  instead  of  being  forced,  rises  according 
to  the  conceptions  required  bj  the  very  laws  of  thinking 
which  God  has  given  to  us,  whilst  in  the  latest  application 
as  in  the  earliest,  we  feel  that  the  terms  are  aUke  literal, 
alike  metaphorical.  The  Apostle's  definition  still  holds 
good  throughout,  "  Whatsoever  maketh  manifest  is  light." 
Whatever  dispensation  causes  to  appear  a  new  state  of 
being  supernaturally  rising  out  of  the  old,  thus  revealing 
the  ever  ascending  glory  of  God,  is  a  new  morning,  the 
literal  perfection  of  a  new  day  in  the  ongoings  of  that 
kingdom  which  is  called  ts-^toVs-Vs  n^sVw,  ^atfjXsia  flravTwv 
<rwv  aj^'jvwv,  Regnuni  omyiium  saeculorum, —  the  kingdom 
of  all  zvorlds  or  ages, —  Psalms,  cxlv,  13.  Hence,  too, 
in  the  highest,  and  widest,  and  most  literal  sense,  is  God 
called  'jfoLTri^  Twv  (p>jTwv,  "  the  Father  of  Lights," — light 
physical,  light  animal,  or  the  "  light  of  life,"  light  rational, 
light  spiritual.  Whatsoever  revealeth  is  light;  and  so 
Augustine  understood  literally  the  language  of  the  Apos- 
tle, in  Ephesians,  v,  13.  Nee  quisquam  arbitretur  illud 
quod  dixi  de  luce  spiritali,  non  jam  proprie,  sed  quasi 
figurate  atque  allegorice  convenire  ad  intelligendum 
diem  et  vesperam  et  mane.  Sed  alitor  quidem  quam 
in  hac  consuetudine  quotidianae  lucis  hujus  et  corporalis  ; 
non  tamen  tanquam  hie  proprie,  ihi  figurate,     UBI  eNIM 

MELIOR   ET   CERTIOR   LUX,  IBI    VERIOR  ETIAM   DIES  ;    CUr 

ergo  non  tam  verier  vespera  et  verius  mane  ?  Neque 
enim  et  Christus .  sic  dicitur  lux  quomodo  dicitur  lapis, 
sed  illud  proprie,  hoc  utique  figurate.  Augustine  De 
G-enesi  ad  Liter  am,  Lib.  IV,  Ch.  xxviii.* 

*  Let  no  one  think  that  what  I  have  said  of  the  spiritual 
light  is  not  to  be  properly,  or  literally,  but  only  figuratively, 
as  it  were,  or  allegorically  understood  of  the  day  and  evening 


274  THE   FOURTH   COMMANDMENT. 

A  chief  objection  to  the  view  here  taken  of  the  Sab- 
bath, has  been  derived  from  its  being  mentioned  in  the 
fourth  commandment  in  immediate  connection  with  the 
human  solar  Sabbath,  and  the  six  solar  days  of  human 
labor.  It  must  be  seen,  however,  that  everything  here 
depends  upon  the  settlement  of  the  previous  interpreta- 
tion of  the  days  in  Genesis.  Whatever  they  mean  there 
is  to  be  carried  along  in  the  exegesis  of  the  later  passage. 
The  language  of  the  fourth  commandment  is  only  a  repe- 
tition, and  there  is  nothing  in  it  inconsistent  Avith  the  idea 
of  the  lesser  cycle  being  made  the  standing  type  or 
representative  of  the  greater,  the  flowing  and  recurring 
of  that  which  has  become  fixed  and  constant  in  the 
higher  chronology. 

But  the  difficulty,  it  is  contended,  is  in  the  close  con- 
nection or  juxtaposition  of  the  words,  or  the  immediate 
repetition  of  the  same  word  in  different  senses.  Admit- 
ting, says  the  objector,  that  the  word  day  may  be  used 
for  cycle,  still  it  is  contrary  to  the  laws  of  a  sound  inter- 
pretation to  suppose  that  there  would  be  so  sudden  a 
change  from  one  application  of  the  term  to  the  other  in 
the  same  passage.  We  cannot  concede  the  force  of  this 
argument.  In  the  first  place,  the  word  is  not  taken  in 
two  distinct  senses,  or  in  two  senses  at  alL  It  has  its 
clear  essential  cychcal  idea  in  both  uses.     Duration,  or, 

and  morning.  It  is,  indeed,  to  be  taken  otherwise  than  ac- 
cording to  our  familiar  notion  of  this  daily  and  corporeal  light; 
yet  not  as  though  the  one  was  literal,  the  other  figurative. 
For  where  there  is  the  better  and  surer  light,  there 
IS  the  more  real  day.  For  neither  is  Christ  called  the 
Light  in  the  same  way  as  he  is  called  a  stone  (the  corner 
stone)  ;  but  the  former  properly  or  literally,  the  latter  only 
figuratively. 


OBJECTION  AND  ANSWER.  2T5 

rather,  a  certain  fixed  duration,  is  not  of  the  essence  of 
the  term.  This  is  an  incidental  to  be  determined  always 
by  that  of  which  it  is  affirmed  or  predicated.  Days  are 
greater  or  smaller,  higher  or  lower,  according  to  the  con- 
ception we  have  of  them  as  God's  days,  or  man's  days, 
as  the  great  days  of  the  creative  acts,  or  the  lesser  cycles 
of  our  transient  and  oft  recurring  human  labors.  We 
are  astonished  at  the  argument,  because  it  so  ignores 
some  of  the  most  impressive  analogies  of  the  Bible,  and 
is,  in  this  respect,  so  contrary  to  its  general  idea  of  repre- 
senting the  greater  by  the  less ;  as  in  its  great  scheme 
of  salvation  the  individual  stands  for  the  family,  the 
family  for  the  nation,  the  chosen  nation  for  the  universal 
earthly  Church,  and  this  for  God's  aeonian  Kingdom  in 
the  heavens.  Besides,  there  are  in  other  parts  of  the 
Bible  the  clearest  and  most  indisputable  examples  of 
similar  transfers  of  meaning.  There  is  one  in  reference 
to  this  very  word,  and  of  so  marked  a  character  that  it 
is  strange  it  should  have  escaped  the  notice  of  the  learned 
and  ingenious  critics  who  have  made  this  objection. 
"  Let  us  walk  as  in  the  day,''  says  Paul,  Romans,  xiii,  13, 
"  not  in  chambering  and  drunkenness."  The  term  is 
evidently  used  for  day  light,  the  light  of  the  sun,  as 
distinguished  from  the  night,  the  season  of  shameful 
crimes.  As  he  speaks,  1  Thessalonians,  v,  5,  of  the  chil- 
dren of  the  day  and  of  the  night  under  the  same  aspect. 
But  how  sudden  the  change  to  the  higher  sense,  and  yet 
without  any  formal  or  outward  intimation  of  metaphor,  or 
any  express  or  implied  recognition  of  one  as  being  any 
more  a  literal  sense  than  the  other, —  "For  the  night 
is  far  gone,  the  day  is  at  hand," — that  day  of  Christ's 
appearing  when  "  The  Light  Himself  shaU  shine,"  the 


276 

daj  that  comes  next  in  the  great  olamic  calendar,  the 
day  that  was  very  near  in  the  chronology  of  the  ages^ 
however  remote  it  might  seem  as  reckoned  by  the  slow 
passing  solar  periods.  The  Apostle  surveyed  the  world 
from  a  position  whence  the  temporal  or  temporary  was 
ever  merging  into  the  eternal.  To  his  vision,  years  are 
but  of  small  account ;  he  does  not  reckon  by  seasons  ; 
the  very  ^x^m-^,  or  "  fashion  of  the  kosmos  is  passing 
away,"  the  ages  are  hastening  on,  the  old  dispensation 
is  but  of  yesterday,  the  new  cycle  is  at  hand ;  and  hence 
for  him  nothing  was  more  easy  and  natural  than  such  a 
transition  from  the  days  of  time  to  the  days  of  eternity. 

This  objection,  drawn  from  the  supposed  different  use 
of  words  in  the  fourth  commandment,  is  the  more  untena- 
ble because  it  overlooks  an  answer  which  is  patent  on  the 
very  face  of  the  language.  Those  to  whom  it  was  imme- 
diately addressed,  may  or  may  not  have  had  the  distinc- 
tion in  their  minds.  The  days  may  have  been  all  alike 
to  them.  We  are  not  concerned  to  determine  here  how 
far  the  conceptions  of  the  medium,  or  of  the  first  recipi" 
ents,  are  to  us  the  true  measures  of  the  meaning  of 
inspiration.  That  subject  has  been  already  discussed  at 
some  length  in  a  previous  chapter,  and  to  it  the  reader  is 
again  referred.  But  this  we  say, — -there  are  other  parts 
of  the  language  of  the  commandment  to  which  the  objection 
has  a  still  stronger  application,  because  under  an  iden- 
tity of  words  there  is  even  a  wider  and  morQ  remarkable 
transition  in  idea.  It  is  somewhat  hidden  in  our  trans- 
lation, but  may  be  clearly  brought  out  by  a  little  atten- 
tion to  the  language.  In  the  Hebrew  it  is  unmistakable. 
"  Six  days  shalt  thou  labor  and  do  all  thy  worh^^^  (C''^?-) 
"  For  in  six  days  the  Lord  made  or  wrought  ("»?)  the 


DIVINE   WORK   AND   DIVINE   REST.  27T 

heavens  and  the  earth."  The  Hebrew  word  for  working 
is  the  same  in  both  clauses.  Now  who  shall  dare  to  say 
here  that  God's  work  and  man's  work,  or  God's  manner 
of  working  and  man's  manner  of  working,  are  the  same, 
or  to  be  taken  in  any  aspects  of  mere  resemblance, 
because  the  same  term  is  used  of  both,  or  of  the  common 
idea  that  unites  them  both  ?  Let  us,  then,  simply  supply 
the  suggested  thoughts.  In  six  human  days  shalt  thou 
labor  and  do  all  thy  human  work,  for  in  six  divine 
dsijs  the  Lord  did  his  divine  or  suijerhuman  work  in  the 
creation  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth.  But  this  is  only 
your  filling  up,  says  the  objector.  And  yet,  what  does 
it  give  us  but  the  ideas  which  must  come  up  to  every 
spiritual  or  truly  rational  mind  that  has  a  right  view  of 
what  is  demanded  in  interpretation,  when  the  same  or 
similar  words  are  appHed  to  the  works  and  ways  of  men 
in  connection  with  the  inefiably  higher  works  and  ways 
of  God  ? 

Again.  "Remember  the  Sahhath  day,"  or  day  of 
rest, — as  every  one  knows  the  word  means  in  the  He-^ 
brew, — "  for  God  rested  on  the  Sabhath  day."  There 
is  the  same  word  for  rest  (or  Sabbath)  in  both  cases ; 
but  has  it  the  same  identical  meaning  ?  Is  there  no  tran- 
sition to  the  higher  idea,  although  in  such  immediate 
verbal  connection  ?  Is  God's  rest  our  rest  ?  Are  not  "  his 
ways  higher  than  our  ways,  and  his  thoughts  than  our 
thoughts,  even  as  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth  ?" 
Is  not  the  measure  of  them  "  longer  than  the  earth  and 
broader  than  the  sea  ?" 

It  is  hard  to  see  the  fallacy  in  this  presentation  of  the 
language  and  ideas.  The  objector  may  be  challenged 
to  show  how  the  argument  does  not  hold  good  in  the 

24 


278   THE  EARTHLY  A  TYPE  OP  THE  HEAVENLY. 

one  case  as  in  the  other.  We  feel  it  easy  to  pass  from 
the  reduced  to  the  enlarged  scale  in  respect  to  the  ideas 
of  'power ^  why  should  there  be  any  more  difficulty  in 
regard  to  those  of  time  ? 

The  truth  is,  that  just  such  transitions  are  in  perfect 
consistency  with  the  outer  language  as  well  as  inner  soul 
of  Scripture.  The  B^ace  representations  of  the  taber- 
nacle are  types  of  the  corresponding  glories  in  the  upper 
sphere ;  and  so  the  time  periods  of  earth  are  memorials 
of  the  higher  cosmical  chronology ;  our  diurnal  and 
annual  revolutions  follow,  although  at  a  vast  distance, 
the  shadows  on  the  dial  plate  of  the  aeonian  duration. 
''  The  secrets  of  wisdom  are  double  to  that  which  is ;" 
or  there  is  a  double  knowledge  pertaining  to  the  reality 
of  being, — if  we  may  thus  accommodate  the  strange  lan- 
guage of  Zophar  the  Naamathite.*  The  thought  has  a 
striking  apphcation  to  our  present  enquiry.  In  this  view 
of  the  words  of  the  fourth  commandment,  and  of  kindred 
passages,  everything  falls  into  harmony.  There  is  a  har- 
mony of  language  and  a  harmony  of  conception.  The 
duplication  is  perfect  throughout  the  scale.  There  are 
the  passing  solar  day%^  the  lowly  ivork^  the  restoring  re^t 
of  the  children  of  time  ;  we  rise  above  them  to  the  con 
templation  of  the  immeasurable  epochs,  the  transcendent 
energising,  the  ineffable  repose  of  Him  who  is  said  to 
"  inhabit  eternity."  The  transition  is  equally  easy,  equally 
natural,  equally  truthful,  in  regard  to  each  duahty  in  this 
triple  division  of  ideas.  It  is  sanctioned  by  the  highest 
reason,  and  is,  at  the  same  time,  in  perfect  accordance 
with  the  usus  loquendi  of  the  sacred  language. 

*Job,  xi,  6.    The  word  rpttjjipi,  in  this  singular  passage,  more 
properly  signifies  essence,  reality,  than  wisdom  or  knowledge. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 


ANTIQUITY   OF   THE   MOSAIC   ACCOUNT. 
Was  it  derived  from  the  Egyptian,  PnoeNECiAN,  or  other  ancient  cos" 

MOGONIES  ? — AnTI-BIBLICAI,  SPIRIT  OF  CERTAIN  COMMENTATORS. — JEWS  NOT 
A  SCIENTIFIC  OR  PHILOSOPHICAL  PEOPLE. — OTHER  COSMOGONIES  EXHIBIT  A 
PANTHEISTIC       PHILOSOPHY. — ThEOGONIES       BATHER      THAN      COSMOGONIES. — 

Pindar. — Which    is    the    original   and    which    the    copy? — The    pure 

THEISM    of    THE    MoSAIC  ACCOUNT   AN    EVIDENCE    OF   ITS   GREAT   ANTIQUITY. — 

Other  myths  national. — The  account  of  creation  has  nothing  pecu- 
liarly Jewish. — Stands  at  the  head  of  all  history. — What  was  its 
3DATE? — Abraham. — Enoch. — Its   style.— Its   unity. — Not  a  growth  likk 

OTHER   MYTHS. 

No  scholar  can  carefully  examine  the  myths  and  tradi- 
tions and  poetry  of  the  ancient  world  in  their  references 
to  the  origin  of  things,  without  being  struck  with  the 
appearance  of  the  Mosaic  facts.  They  make  themselves 
evident  amid  all  the  distortions  and  obscurities,  corrup- 
tions and  additions,  with  which  they  have  been  handed 
down.  These  resemblances  have  been  so  unmistakable 
tliat  some  anti-biblical  critics  have  not  hesitated  to  charge 
the  imitation  on  the  Scriptural  account,  and  to  represent 
it  as  derived  from  the  early  heathen  myths.  They  dis- 
pose at  once,  in  their  way,  of  the  whole  matter  by  saying 
it  is  only  "  in  accordance  with  the  ancient  ideas,"  and 
this  they  would  have  their  readers  accept  as  a  most  suffi- 
cient and  satisfactory  account.  But  the  problem  is  still 
unsolved.  The  most  important  question  still  remains 
unanswered — Whence  came  these  "ancient  ideas?" 
They  tell  us  Moses  took  them  from  the  Egyptians  and 


280    WAS  IT  DERIVED  FROM  THE  EGYPTIAN  ? 

Phoenicians ;  and  this  is  about  all  they  have  to  say  of  the 
origin  of  a  narrative  so  wondrous  m  itself,  in  its  own 
unrivalled  grandeur,  while  it  presents  so  marked  a  con- 
trast, in  other  respects,  with  the  monstrous  myths  to 
which  they  would  trace  its  origin.  Thus  Eichorn,  Hasse, 
and  other  German  critics  of  the  same  school.  The  more 
sober  Kosenmiiller  gives  us  the  same  opinion  in  a  few 
sentences,  as  though  it  were  a  matter  too  unimportant  to 
be  dwelt  upon,  or  too  plain  for  a  serious  and  elaborate 
argument.  "  Who  can  beUeve,"  he  says,  "  that  the 
learned  and  philosophic  Egyptians  and  Phoenicians  could 
have  borrowed  such  things  from  the  illiterate  and  unsci- 
entific Hebrews?"  But  could  he  not  have  seen  that  this 
argument,  if  it  have  any  force  at  all,  is  far  more  appli- 
cable to  the  sublime  theology  of  the  Hebrews  than  to 
their  cosmogony?  To  say  the  least,  his  quis  credat 
would  have  had  as  much  pertinency  in  the  one  case  as 
in  the  other.  Who  could  beUeve,  if  we  did  not  know  the 
fact,  that  the  illiterate  and  unscientific  Hebrews  should 
have  had  so  pure  and  subhme  a  theism  as  is  presented  in 
the  Psalms,  the  Prophets,  the  Book  of  Job,  or  as  appears 
in  their  history,  their  poetry,  and  their  law,  whilst  the 
more  civilized  Phoenicians  worshipped  a  fish,  the  philoso- 
phic Egyptians  debased  themselves  to  the  adoration  of 
calves  and  crocodiles,  and  the  refined  Greeks,  amid  their 
rabble  of  vulgar  gods  and  goddesses,  could  play  the  brute 
in  the  worship  of  Pan,  or  sink  below  the  brute  in  the 
horrible  obscenities  of  the  phallic  or  Bacchic  processions  ? 
Whence  the  difference  between  Moses  and  the  theogony  of 
Hesiod,  between  Isaiah  and  Homer,  between  David  and 
Pindar,  between  the  author  of  the  book  of  Job  and 
^^schylus,  the  purest  and  most  religious  of  the  Grecian 


HEBREW   THEOLOGY.  281 

dramatists  ?  Is  the  problem  insolvable  in  the  one  aspect 
without  the  aid  of  the  supernatural,  why  not  also  in  the 
other  ?  Is  the  Hebrew  cosmogony,  wonderful  as  it  is,  a 
more  wonderful  thing  than  their  theology  and  the  unique 
historical  position  it  gives  them  among  the  nations  of  the 
ancient  world  ?  Is  the  former  so  much  above  the  uncul- 
tivated Jewish  mind  that  we  are  compelled  to  regard  it 
as  borrowed  from  a  people  of  higher  conceptions,  whilst 
the  latter  is  all  their  own,  their  peculiar  unchallenged 
possession  in  the  immense  moral  waste  by  which  they 
were  for  ages  surrounded. 

It  is  no  digression  from  our  main  subject  to  remark 
here,  that  amid  all  the  trifling  of  this  unspiritual  school, 
there  is  nothing  that  goes  beyond  this  constant  attempt 
to  trace  the  Jewish  law,  and  Jewish  belief,  and  Jewish 
rehgion,  to  the  influence  of  Egyptian  ideas.  No  evan- 
gelical narrowness  ever  so  warped  the  Bible  in  favor  of 
untenable  dogmas,  as  they  warp  history,  and  the  Bible, 
too,  in  support  of  their  extravagant  anti-biblical  hypothe- 
ses. Carry  them  out,  and  they  would  make  the  purest 
monotheism  the  direct  offspring  of  the  most  degraded 
polytheism  the  world  ever  knew.  They  would  represent 
the  spiritual,  the  formless,  as  coming  out  of  a  material 
or  sense  imagery  that  has  never  been  exceeded  in  gross- 
ness  of  conception.  •  Still  more  monstrous  and  perverse 
is  it  when  there  is  an  attempt  made,  in  all  apparent  seri- 
ousness, to  trace  the  Jewish  law  of  the  ten  command- 
ments to  the  same  source.  "  Thou  shalt  have  no  other 
(rods  before  we."  This,  they  would  say,  comes  from 
the  nation  that  worshipped  the  crocodile  and  the  ibis ! 
"  Thou  shalt  not  make  to  thyself  any  graven  image  of 
anything  in  heaven  and  earth ;"  "  for  ye  saw  no  manner 

24* 


282  ANTI-BIBLICAL   CRITICS. 

of  similitude  when  the  Lord  spake  to  you  in  Horeb.'' 
This  thought,  so  spiritual,  so  superhuman,  was  conceived  in 
the  land  of  the  sphjnxes,  and  among  temples  covered  with 
every  form  of  deified  animation  that  ever  crawled  upon 
the  earth,  or  swarmed  in  the  waters  !  The  holy  rest  of 
the  Sabbath,  with  its  intermission  of  labor  to  master  and 
servant,  to  man  and  beast,  came  from  a  people  in  whose 
subsequent  history  no  trace  of  such  an  institution  has 
ever  been  found,  and  the  grossness  of  whose  bondage 
was  ever  at  war  with  the  faintest  recognition  of  the  phi- 
lanthropic as*  well  as  religious  idea  !  The  purity  of  the 
seventh  commandment  grew  up  in  the  land  of  adultery 
and  incest ;  it  had  its  birth  in  the  midst  of  a  licentious- 
ness so  revolting  that  it  defiles  the  pages  of  history,  and 
renders  almost  unreadable  the  otherwise  chaste  Herodo- 
tus !  A  reverence  which  fears  to  mention  the  name  of 
Deity  was  derived  from  a  people  among  whom  nothing 
was  more  common  or  more  profanely  used  than  all  the 
appellations  of  their  divinities  !  And  so  we  might  go 
through  the  Jewish  religion  and  moral  law.  Quis  credat  ? 
We  may  well  employ  Rosenmiiller's  own  question, — • 
Who  could  believe  this  unless  it  be  those  who  are  deter- 
mined to  treat  the  Bible  as  a  myth,  and  reject  everything 
which  goes  to  prove  its  great  antiquity  ? 

But  to  return  to  our  more  immediate  subject — It 
may,  perhaps,  be  said,  in  defense  of  the  higher  character 
of  the  Greek  and  Egyptian  myths,  that  they  had  a  philo- 
sophy concealed  under  them.  Conceding  this,  however, 
only  makes  the  argument  stronger  against  the  gratuitous 
assumptions  of  the  anti-biblical  commentators.  Be  it  so 
that  in  this  respect  these  nations  excelled  the  Jews  to 
any  extent  that  may  be  desired,  the  statement  at  once 


NOTHING   IDEAL   IN   THE   MOSAIC   CREATION.      283 

supplies  its  own  answer.  There  was  no  science,  no  pliilo- 
sophy,  among  the  Jews.  Granted ;  we  say.  But,  then, 
there  is  nothing  scientific,  nothing  that  assumes  to  be 
philosophical  in  the  Mosaic  account  of  the  creation. 
There  is  nothing  that  carries  any  appearance  of  either  in 
its  simple  yet  sublime  account  of  supposed  supernatural 
facts.  But  the  mythologies  with  which  it  is  compared 
do  almost  all  present  something  of  tliis  character.  There 
is  the  appearance  of  a  philosophy  mingled  with  all  their 
extravagance ;  and  this  appearance  is  proof  of  their  later 
origin.  It  takes  the  shape  of  the  mythical,  but  still  it  is 
there,  and  the  careful  reader  can  always  discover  it. 
There  are  what  the  Germans  and  Germanizing  men  are 
so  fond  of  caUing  ideas.  They  find  them  in  every  part 
of  the  old  mythologies,  unless  where  they  are  utterly 
baffled  by  the  grotesqueness  of  the  Hindoo,  or  the  un- 
meaning horrors  of  the  Scandinavian  legends.  Among 
the  Greeks,  they  see  them  every  where.  From  Kronos 
and  his  golden  age  to  Silenus,  from  Zeus  to  the  river 
god,  from  the  Muses  to  the  Satyrs,  from  Prometheus 
to  Priapus,  everything  is  full  of  ideas.  They  are  in 
all  the  legends  of  Homer,  they  swarm  in  every  part  of 
Hesiod's  Theogonia.  Now  there  is  a  vast  deal  of  extravar 
gance  in  all  this,  and  yet  some  truth.  There  are  cer- 
tainly in  the  Greek  myths,  and  in  the  Greek  cosmogonies, 
the  appearances  of  what  are  thus  called  ideas — in  other 
words,  of  after-thoughts,  to  which  the  story  is  made  to 
correspond,  (its  original  outlines  being  perverted  for  that 
purpose,)  or  for  which  it  was  wholly  invented,  or,  at 
least,  supplied  with  new  proper  names  that  might  give  it 
more  of  the  mythical  or  allegorical  aspect.  Thus  there 
is  found  a  physical  meaning,  a  moral  meaning,  an  his- 


284  GREEK  MYTHS   PULL   OP  IDEAS. 

torical  meaning,  in  what  was  originally  either  pure  fancy, 
or  an  obscured  tradition  of  early  facts,  like  the  Mosaic 
account  of  the  creation,  the  fall,  or  the  flood.  No  man 
can  read  Hesiod's  Theogonia  without  being  struck  with 
its  purely  physical  ideas.  So  Plato  finds  ideas  in 
Homer's  legends  of  Oceanus  and  Tethys.  The  philoso- 
pher sees  a  cosmogony  there,  whether  the  poet  thought 
of  it  or  not.  These  remarks  hold  true  of  the  character 
of  the  earliest  Egyptian  myths.  In  other  words,  they 
have  assumed  what  may  be  called  a  mythico-philosophic 
character.  This  is  the  first  form  philosophy  took  after 
the  pure  theism  of  the  patriarchal  ages  had  commenced 
its  first  transition  to  pantheism,  or  nature  worsJiip.  The 
seeds  are  discoverable  in  the  Orphic  theology,  which 
doubtless  was  an  early  reality,  however  spurious  we  may 
regard  the  present  hymns  which  bear  that  name.  Now 
this  mythico-ideal  character,  although  of  respectable 
antiquity,  is  not  a  trait  of  the  earliest  mind.  Men  are 
not  first  occupied  with  ideas,  in  this  philosophic  sense  of 
the  term,  but  with  the  great  facts  of  nature  and  origin 
so  far  as  they  can  get  at  them,  either  by  observation  or 
some  higher  than  human  teaching.  One  might  suppose 
from  the  speculations  of  certain  writers  that  the  first  men 
did  nothing  but  allegorize,  or  think  out  the  most  recon* 
dite  truths  in  nature  and  morals,  and  then  clothe  these 
ideas  in  the  most  ingeniously  contrived  myths.  Such 
was,  doubtless,  to  some  extent,  the  case  in  a  later  age, 
when  the  traditional  meaning  was  lost,  or  obscured,  or 
the  early  narrative  in  its  sublime  simplicity  was  felt  to 
have  too  little  of  the  wild,  the  gorgeous,  or  the  horrifying 
of  the  later  and  progressive  imagination.  At  this  stage 
men  began  to  look  back  of  the  simple  facts,  that  is,  to 


world's  infancy  not  idealizing.  285 

philosophize  or  invent  reasons,  and  hence  those  additions, 
perversions,  and  new  aspects,  which  gave  rise  to  the 
subsequent  mythology  with  its  mythico-philosophical  cha- 
racter. But  in  that  extreme  antiquity  to  which  this 
record  in  Genesis  points  us,  and  to  which  it  bears  every 
mark  of  itself  belonging,  such  could  not  have  been  the 
condition  of  the  human  mind.  It  does  not  correspond  to 
what  we  know  of  the  nature  of  man.  It  is  not  supported 
by  that  analogy  between  the  individual  life,  and  the  life 
of  the  world  or  race,  which  some  of  these  very  theorists 
are  so  fond  of  tracing.  In  the  earliest  dawning  of  our 
perceptions  and  our  intellect,  Ave  are  not  occupied  with 
fables.  Our  first  lessons  are  not  conveyed  in  this  way. 
There  is  a  wiser  instinct  in  our  teachers,  there  is  a  better 
guide  in  our  own  natures.  Our  first  observations,  and 
our  first  teachings,  are  the  soberest  facts.  Fables  come 
in  afterward.  They  make  part  of  the  instruction  of  the 
boyhood  which  succeeds  the  earliest  state.  They  indi- 
cate a  change  in  the  condition  of  the  intellect  and  the 
imagination.  They  imply  the  inventive,  the  comparar 
tive,  the  analogous,  the  ideal.  We  do  not  altogether 
beheve  in  this  mode  of  representing  the  infancy  of  the 
world  as  corresponding  to  the  infancy  of  the  individual, 
but  in  the  aspect  under  which  we  now  view  it,  it  presents 
some  striking  features  of  resemblance.  In  both  states 
the  real  must  go  before  and  predominate  over  the  ideal. 
In  respect  to  both  may  we  say  that  the  mythical,  the 
mythological,  unerringly  denotes  a  later  period. 

Throughout  the  earliest  Pagan  myths,  there  is  evidence 
of  a  philosophic  nature-worship.  A  pantheistic  atmo- 
sphere is  not  only  modifying,  but  transforming  everything 
into  shapes  that  may  accord  with  its  own  dreamy  mysti- 


286  MOSES    GIYES    FACTS,    NOT    IDEAS. 

cism.  In  the  Mosaic  account,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
theistic  element  is  not  only  pre-eminent,  but  all-pervading. 
All  is  pure,  severe,  sublime,  truthful,  worthy  of  a  narrative 
that  professes  to  set  forth  the  great  ante-mundane  works 
which  no  science  could  reach,  no  poetry  imagine,  no 
mysticism  could  render  more  rational  or  more  significant. 
There  is  no  attempt  at  explanation,  through  any  philoso- 
phical notions,  either  directly  expressed  or  exhibited  in 
the  form  of  myths.  There  is  betrayed  by  the  writer, 
whoever  he  may  be,  no  consciousness  of  that  human  ele- 
ment that  demands  explanation,  or  would  seek  in  an  ideal 
a  ground  of  credibility  for  which  we  would  not  trust  the 
events  themselves.  Instead  of  a  representation  of  ideas, 
it  is  a  record  of  six  mighty  acts  of  God,  each  commenc- 
ing a  new  order  of  things,  and  all  terminating  in  that 
repose  of  the  creative  power,  and  that  consequent  regu- 
larity of  nature,  which  is  the  present  rest  of  the  world. 

Thus,  the  very  fact  that  the  Hebrews  were  a  more 
simple  people,  a  more  primitive  people,  or  that  they  had 
less  science  and  philosophy  than  their  neighbors,  makes 
it  all  the  less  likely  that  they  should  have  taken  myths 
dressed  up  in  the  extravagances  of  the  Hindoo  legends, 
or  representative  of  the  physical  fancies  of  the  Egyptian 
and  Hesiodean  theogonies,  and  adopted  them  as  their 
own  at  all, — much  less  that  by  a  reverse  process  they 
should  have  stripped  them  of  all  their  physical  idealism, 
and  reduced  them  to  the  majestic  simplicity  that  appears 
in  the  Mosaic  history  of  the  creation.  What  most  em- 
phatically forbids  any  such  thought,  is  the  distinction  to 
which  we  have  already  alluded,  and  which  is  so  marked 
that  no  one  who  studies  well  both  sides  of  the  question 
can  possibly  overlook  it.     It  is  that  the  one  is  so  purely 


PAGAN  MYTHS  ARE  THEOGOmES.       287 

and  even  unphilosophically  theistic,  the  others  exhibit  so 
manifestly  the  presence  of  pantheistic  ideas.  The  Mosaic 
account  is  a  record  of  the  steps  by  which  God  made  the 
world.  The  Pagan  myths  are,  for  the  most  part,  tlieogo- 
nies  as  well  as  cosmogonies, —  that  is,  they  give  the 
generation  of  the  universe,  including  Gods  as  well  as 
men.  They  make  us  all  the  children  of  one  mother. 
When  we  come  to  trace  strictly  the  leading  idea,  plants, 
animals,  men,  and  divinities,  even  the  highest  Gods,  are 
all,  in  some  way,  developments  from  one  unaided  and 
eternal  nature.  The  language  of  Pindar  (Nem.  vi,) 
would  give  the  spirit  of  almost  every  cosmogony,  but 
that  of  the  Bible,  not  even  excepting  some  which  have 
their  authors  and  admirers  in  the  modern  world. 

(XttT^og  a/x(pore|oi. 
"  One  race  of  Gods  and  men,  from  one  mother  breathe 
we  all."  And  this  mother  is  nature,  or,  as  expressed  in 
the  grosser  form,  the  earth.  So  Hesiod  begins  his  gene- 
alogy with  TaTcft.  who  first  gives  birth  to  Ou^avo'^,  or  the 
Heaven.  From  these  are  born  K^o'voj  (or  'K^ovog)  and 
the  Titans, —  in  other  words,  Time  and  the  mighty  me- 
chanical powers  of  the  world.  Gods,  indeed,  are  men- 
tioned, "  Gods  many,"  and  demigods  in  vast  numbers, 
but  the  highest  gods  are  only  the  older  powers,  the  first 
born  of  this  universal  parent.  In  this  one  respect,  how  im- 
mense the  difference  between  all  such  mythologies  and 
the  Mosaic  narrative !  How  irresistible  the  argument 
from  this  alone,  that  it  must  have  had  an  origin,  not  only 
totally  distinct  from,  but  immeasurably  above,  them  all. 
In  the  one,  God  is  the  supernatural  cause  as  well  as  the 
supernatural   governor   of  nature,   in   the   others,   the 


288     WHAT  THE  DATE   OF   THE  MOSAIC   ACCOUNT? 

Divinity,  if  we  can  still  for  convenience  retain  the  name, 
is  only  Nature's  first  born,  her  highest  or  oldest  develop- 
ment. 

But  these  critics  are  fighting  shadows.  The  serious 
defender  of  the  Mosaic  account  will  never  accept  the 
issue  which  would  seem  to  assume  on  his  side,  and  as  hia 
ground,  that  this  view  of  creation  originated  among  the 
Jews,  just  as  the  Phoenician  myths  originated  among  the 
Phoenicians, — thus  making  it  at  all  a  question  of  the 
superior  antiquity  of  their  respective  claims.  He  takes 
the  ground  that  in  itself  it  was  much  older  than  either 
or  any  of  these  nationahties,  whether  Jewish  or  heathen. 
He  maintains  that  the  account  of  it,  as  we  now  have  it, 
never  grew  out  of  the  institutions  or  ideas  of  any  histori- 
cal people,  but  was  given  by  direct  inspiration  to  Moses, 
or  to  some  more  ancient  seer  (perhaps  an  Antediluvian) 
from  whom  it  was  handed  down  to  Moses,  and  was  thus 
incorporated  by  Moses  in  his  Book  of  Genesis  or  Genera- 
tions. Such  a  view  in  respect  to  its  first  human  author, 
does  not,  in  the  least,  detract  from  its  true  divine  inspira- 
tion. In  fact,  we  find  it  more  easy  to  believe  in  its 
divine  origin  when  we  thus  regard  it  as  given  in  the 
earliest  times,  and  to  the  earliest  men,  and  in  the  earliest 
language  that  was  spoken  on  the  globe.  Such  a  view, 
too,  best  agrees  with  its  air  of  extreme  antiquity,  as 
shown  by  that  primitive  simplicity,  or  freedom  from  the 
mythico-ideal,  to  which  we  have  already  adverted. 

There  is  no  age  to  which  we  can  assign  it  but  the  very 
earliest.  We  need  not  stop  to  show  that  it  could  not 
have  been  invented  in  that  late  period  of  the  Jewish 
captivity  to  which  the  neological  critics  would  give  all 
the  earlier  parts  of  the  Old  Testament.     Every  one  who 


NONE  SHORT  OF  THE  EARLIEST.        289 

is  familiar  with  the  state  of  the  nations  at  that  time,  both 
as  exhibited  in  sacred  and  profane  history,  knows  that  it 
could  not  have  originated  then.  It  has  a  look  immensely 
older  than  anything  that  was  the  product  of  that  late 
and  most  corrupt  age  of  the  world.  But,  as  we  go  back, 
we  find  almost  equal  difficulty  in  every  other  time  we 
may  assume.  Take  the  date  of  the  Jewish  monarchy, 
the  days  of  Samuel,  of  the  Judges,  of  the  Conquest  of 
Canaan,  of  the  wanderings  in  the  wilderness,  of  the 
bondage  in  Egypt.  We  feel  that  none  of  these  could 
naturally  have  given  birth  to  such  myth  (to  call  it  so  by 
way  of  accommodation)  if  it  had  then,  for  the  first  time, 
been  thought  of,  and  thought  out.  We  might,  indeed, 
have  expected  it  from  the  historian  of  Sinai,  and  the 
author  of  the  Ninetieth  Psalm,  but  aside  from  the 
character  of  Moses,  there  is  nothing  in  any  of  these  ages 
from  which  it  could  have  spontaneously  arisen  as  a  natural 
result  of  their  modes  of  feeling  and  thinking.  If  Moses 
was  the  first  writer,  it  is  assumed  to  have  been  given 
him  by  direct  inspiration.  And  this  must  always  be 
regarded  as  the  claim,  at  least,  whoever  is  the  author. 
It  treats  of  matters  utterly  beyond  all  human  knowledge, 
and  all  human  tradition.  It  is,  therefore,  what  it  pro- 
fesses to  be,  a  revelation  from  God,  or  the  boldest,  the 
most  impious,  the  most  deliberately  designed  of  forgeries. 
Other  mythologies  are  protected  from  this  charge  by  the 
supposition  of  their  having  been  the  growth  of  time. 
But  this  is  beyond  all  doubt  a  unity.  It  had  no  growth. 
It  is  the  unique  conception  of  the  sublimest  order  of 
human  genius — -that  high  and  devout  genius  which  we 
find  it  so  difficult  to  associate  with  the  ideas  of  lying  or 
dehberate  imposture, —  or  it  was  given  to  some  human 
25 


290        OLDER  THAN  THE  PATRIARCHS. 

thought  bj  Him  who  alone  could  know  the  wondrous 
facts  it  professes  to  set  forth. 

Regarding  it  then  as  older  than  Moses,  we  still  find  it 
difficult  to  stop  at  any  time  short  of  the  very  earliest  as 
its  only  true  and  proper  date.  It  has  an  older  look  than 
the  days  of  the  nomadic  Patriarchs.  It  possesses  every 
appearance  of  having  been  an  ancient,  a  very  ancient 
tradition,  when  Abraham  set  out  from  Ur  of  the  Chal- 
dees,  and  the  Canaanites  had  already  settled  in  the  land. 
It  is  only  when  we  carry  it  across  the  mighty  flood,  and 
travel  with  it  up  to  the  days  of  Enoch  and  Seth,  that  wo 
find  something  in  our  conceived  condition  of  the  world 
that  seems  in  harmony  with  the  majestic  air,  the  pictorial 
language,  the  lonely  grandeur  of  this  oldest  of  human 
records.  There  is  something  in  the  account  of  Enoch, 
the  seventh  from  Adam,  and  of  that  superhuman  life 
which  is  so  sublimely  described  as  a  "  walking  with  God,'^ 
that  gives  us  the  best  idea  of  the  state  of  soul  to  which 
such  a  revelation  might  be  made, —  a  revelation  that 
might  be  by  direct  outward  vocal  communication  before 
"  God  took  him"  from  the  earth,  or  by  an  interior  inspi- 
ration sounding  in  harmony  with  the  musings  of  a  spirit 
to  whom  nature  was  yet  all  fresh,  all  wondrous  fact,  too 
real  to  allow  of  any  demand  for  myth,  too  newly  impres- 
sive in  itself  for  any  philosophic  ideal,  or  any  play  of 
fancy,  and  whose  pure  theism  had  as  yet  sufiered  no 
worldly  haze  to  dim  the  line  which  separates  the  Creator 
from  his  works.  "And  Enoch  walked  with  God." 
When  we  find  something  like  this  to  which  we  can  trace 
the  wild  legends  of  Sanchoniatho,  or  the  grotesque  Egyp- 
tian animahsm,  or  the  Hesiodean  genealogy  of  all  things 
from  earth  or  nature,  we  may  have  some  patience  with 


MOSAIC  ACCOUNT  NOT  NATIONAL.  291 

the  foolish  argument  that  the  Mosaic  account  must  have 
been  derived  from  these  because  the  Hebrews  were  an 
unphilosophical  and  unscientific  people. 

There  must  have  been  some  older  source  from  which 
Egyptians,  Phoenicians,  and  Hebrews,  all  copied  their 
cosmogonies.  As  far  as  they  were  mere  national  creeds 
they  stand  alike, — only  the  Hebrews,  from  their  want  of 
a  philosophy,  or  mystic  theology,  adhered  more  closely  to 
the  simplicity  and  pure  theism  of  the  primitive  account, 
whilst  the  others  dressed  it  up  in  legends,  whose  manner 
of  introduction  any  one  acquainted  with  the  antiquities 
of  those  nations  would  have  no  great  difficulty  in  account- 
ing for.  In  all  the  others  we  discover  the  peculiarities 
of  nation,  of  age,  of  partial  modes  of  thinking.  In  the 
Mosaic  there  is  nothing  national.  It  is  altogether  sepa- 
rate from  the  Jewish  national  history.  It  stands  away 
back  of  the  earliest  annals  in  which  their  national  charac- 
teristics begin  to  make  themselves  manifest.  Thus, 
standing  at  the  head  of  all  history,  it  belongs  to  all 
nations.  It  is  no  more  distinctively  Jewish,  as  far  as  the 
known  history  of  this  people  is  concerned,  than  it  is 
Egyptian,  or  Greek,  or  Babylonian,  unless  we  regard 
as  Jewish  peculiarities  the  grandeur  and  purity  of  its 
theism ;  but  then  there  is  at  once  an  end  of  the  neolo- 
gist's  argument,  which  is  grounded  solely  on  a  supposed 
inferiority  of  the  Hebrew  race  in  the  higher  ideas,  and 
the  consequent  probability  of  their  having  derived  their 
cosmogonies  from  the  more  philosophical  and  scientific 
nations.  The  method  of  argument  adopted  by  this  class 
of  critics  often  defeats  itself.  They  tell  us,  for  example, 
that  the  Mosaic  account  was  derived  from  the  Persian. 
Now  this  latter  distinctly  taught   that   the  world  was 


292  WHICH  IS  THE  COPY? 

created  in  six  times  or  periods.  And  jet  in  interpreting 
Genesis  these  same  commentators  will  have  it  dai/s  of 
twenty-four  hours  and  nothing  else.  Can  there  be  any 
doubt  as  to  the  animus  here  ?  The  Bible  is  to  be  ren- 
dered as  objectionable  as  possible,  even  if  it  can  only  be 
done  by  stultifying  their  own  favorite  positions. 

But  which  is  the  copy  and  which  the  original  ?  This, 
after  all,  is  the  great  question,  and  we  think  that  no  one 
who  views  it  attentively  in  the  light  of  reason  and  history 
can  have  any  very  great  trouble  in  deciding  it.  Which 
preserves  the  strong,  clear  features  of  the  primitive  paint- 
ing in  its  simplicity,  its  unity,  its  consistency,  and  which 
exhibits  the  marks  of  the  copy  in  overloaded  additions, 
incongruous  mixtures,  and  those  inharmonious  touches 
which  furnish  unmistakable  evidence  that  the  execution 
and  the  design,  the  sketching  and  the  filling  up,  are  from 
different  and  very  dissimilar  minds?  Or,  to  drop  all 
metaphor,  which  presents  most  strongly  the  impress  of 
afterthoughts  or  ideas,  modified  by  the  peculiar  ways  of 
thinking,  of  believing,  or  of  philosophizing,  that  are 
known  by  us  to  have  characterized  certain  nations 
and  ages  ?  The  answer  of  the  neologist  falls  entirely 
short  of  the  great  issues  suggested  by  such  queries.  To 
say  that  the  "  Mosaic  cosmogony  is  in  accordance  with 
ancient  ideas,"  or  "  ancient  mythologies,"  is  only  solemn 
trifling.  Whence  came  these  "  ancient  ideas  ?"  Whence 
came  this  wondrous  account  of  creation, —  of  facts  which 
must  have  been  before  all  human  knowledge  ?  Let  a 
thinking  man  set  himself  seriously  down  to  the  solution 
of  the  problem.  Let  him  estimate  the  mighty  difficulties 
which  attend  any  answer  but  that  which  traces  it  to 
divine  inspiration,  and  he  will  have  a  stronger  evidence 
of  its  authenticity  than  could  perhaps  be  derived  from 


COULD    IT   HAVE   BEEN   INVENTED?  293 

any  process  of  argumentation.  He  will  find  himself 
involved  in  mysteries  very  much  like  tho&e  that  are  in 
the  way  when  we  attempt  to  account  for  the  existence  of 
the  Jewish  people  among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  or  the 
life  of  Paul  among  the  philosophers,  or  the  establishment 
of  Christianity  on  any  mere  natural  or  historical  grounds. 
In  whose  mind  was  first  born  this  wondrous  myth,  (if 
any  will  still  call  it  so,)  or  rather  this  wondrous  vision,  in 
all  the  rigid  truthfulness  of  its  unity  and  consistency  ? 
Whence  this  remarkable  order  of  ideas  so  different  from 
what  some  would  regard  as  the  natural  offspring  of  that 
simple,  unphilosophical,  unscientific  age  ?  Whence  this 
pecuhar  chronological  aspect,  this  succession  of  periods, 
or  days,  call  them  what  we  will,  rising  from  the  chaotic, 
the  unformed,  through  such  regular  and  harmonious 
gradations  into  higher  and  higher  forms  of  life  ?  There 
is  no  attempt  to  determine  the  times  or  the  ages.  They 
may  have  been  not  only  unknown  to  the  writer,  but  un- 
conceived.  Still,  succession  is  the  great  fact,  or  series 
of  facts,  revealed,  and  this  is  what  we  have  called  its 
time-aspect,  the  chronological  feature  by  which  it  is  dis- 
tinguished from  other  cosmogonies.  Now,  had  it  been 
the  product  of  the  mere  human  inventive  faculty,  we 
think  it  would  have  been  altogether  the  other  way.  Im- 
posing space  creations,  in  which  space  and  power,  not 
time,  were  the  predominant  notions,  would  have  been  the 
most  natural  result  of  the  mere  imagination  aroused  by 
the  contemplation  of  the  spatial  glories  of  the  heavens,  or 
of  the  stupendous  objects  that  everywhere  meet  the  gaze 
of  the  senses  upon  the  earth.  It  would,  in  all  likelihood, 
have  begun  with  the  building  of  the  celestial  spheres, 
and  would  never  have  made  the  creation  of  the  stars  a 

25* 


294      PROBABLE   COURSE   OP  AN   INVENTED   MYTH. 

mere  note  or  passing  scholium  intended  to  denote  simply 
their  phenomenal  relation  to  the  earth  as  measures  of 
time  and  seasons.  It  would  have  placed  the  making  of 
the  firmament  and  celestial  luminaries  among  the  earhest 
and  most  striking  acts  of  its  gorgeous  architecture.  It 
would  have  described  the  cutting  out  of  the  rivers,  the 
heaping  up  of  the  mountains,  the  levelling  of  the  plains. 
And  thus  the  space  aspect,  we  may  repeat  it,  would  have 
been  the  prominent  and  controUing  feature,  instead  of 
that  remarkable  succession  of  times  which  we  find  in  the 
account,  and  which  never  could  have  been  suggested  by 
the  sense,  or  the  experience,  or  by  anything  in  the  phi- 
losophy or  science  of  the  earliest  days. 

Another  striking  trait  of  the  Mosaic  cosmogony  is  its 
unbroken  wholeness  or  unity,  and  this  furnishes  an  answer 
to  another  method  that  might  be  used  to  account  for  its 
introduction  and  prevalence  in  the  world.  A  myth,  it 
jiiay  be  said,  is  not  necessarily  a  lie,  an  imposture,  a 
studied  and  fabricated  deception.  It  grows  up  in  time  ; 
it  comes  from  some  germ  of  fact  or  tradition,  and  is 
added  to  by  little  and  little.  But  such  an  explanation, 
or  such  a  defence,  however  it  might  suit  other  myths, 
could  not  be  made  in  respect  to  the  narrative  in  Genesis. 
It  is,  we  repeat  it,  the  boldest,  the  most  impious  of  lies, 
or  the  most  wonderful  of  mere  imaginative  conceptions, 
or  the  grandest  of  revealed  physical  truths.  It  is  a  sud- 
den, a  full-grown  birth.  Other  myths  are  evidently 
groivths.  We  can,  in  most  cases,  tell  whence  and  how 
they  came,  from  what  sources  they  derived  their  various 
and  ofttimes  incoherent  parts,  in  what  circumstances  of 
national  peculiarity  they  were  fashioned,  by  what  ideas 
they  were  nurtured,  how  they  sprang  one  from  another, 
and  bow  they  have  modified  one  another.     They  are 


UNITY   OF   THE   MOSAIC   ACCOUNT.  295 

growths  as  evidently  as  the  geological  formations,  and 
thus  we  see  how  they  might  have  come,  and  did  come, 
from  successive  accretions,  whether  we  know,  or  not,  the 
date  or  periods  of  their  history.  But  this,  we  say,  is  a 
whole,  as  much  as  any  theorem  in  geometry.  Be  it 
invention  or  inspiration,  it  is  the  invention  or  the  inspira- 
tion of  one  mind.  Other  cosmogonies,  though  bearing 
unmistakable  evidence  of  their  descent  from  the  Mosaic, 
have  had  successive  deposits,  in  successive  series,  of 
mythological  strata.  This  stands  towering  out  in  lonely 
sublimity,  like  the  everlasting  granite  of  the  Alps  or  the 
Himalaya  as  compared  with  the  changing  alluvium  of  the 
Nile  or  the  Ganges.  As  the  serene  air  that  ever  sur- 
rounds the  head  of  Mont  Blanc  excels  in  purity  the 
mists  of  the  fen,  so  does  the  lofty  theism  of  the  Mosaic 
account  rise  high  above  the  nature-worship  of  the  Egyp- 
tian and  Hesiodean  theogonies.  "  In  the  beginning  God 
made  the  heavens,  and  the  earth.  And  the  earth  was 
waste  and  void,  and  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the 
deep.  And  the  Spirit  of  God  brooded  over  the  waters. 
And  God  said.  Let  there  be  light,  and  it  was  light.  And 
God  saw  the  light  that  it  was  fair,  and  God  divided  the 
light  from  the  darkness.  And  thus  there  was  an  eve- 
ning and  a  morning — one  day  ?"  What  is  there  like  it, 
or  to  be  at  all  compared  with  it,  in  any  mythology  on 
earth  ?  There  it  stands,  high  above  them  all,  and  remote 
trom  them  all,  in  its  air  of  great  antiquity,  in  its  unac- 
countableness,  in  its  serene  truthfulness,  in  its  unap- 
proachable sublimity,  in  that  impress  of  divine  majesty 
and  ineffable  holiness  which  even  the  unbelieving  neolo- 
gist  has  been  compelled  to  acknowledge,  and  by  which 
every  devout  reader  feels  that  the  first  page  in  Genesis 
is  forever  distinguished  from  any  mere  human  production. 


CHAPTEE  XXIII. 


HEATHEN   COSMOGONIES  DEKIVED   FROM   THE  MOSAIC 

ACCOUNT. 

Myths  derived  fkom  the  account  of  the  brooding  spirit. — Myth  of 

INCUBATION    OR   THE    EGG. — ARISTOPHANES. — ErOS    OR   LOVE. — ThE    CHAOS.— 

Mosaic  idea  of  separation  or  division. —Homer's  myths  of  Oceanus 
AND  Tethys. — The  sea  the  mother  of  animals. — Thales  makes  water 
thb  oldest  element.— Kronos  son  op  Uranus.— Time  son  of  heaven.— 
DioDORUS  SicuLus.— Remarkable  coincidences  between  the  language 
OF  Ovid  and  that  of  Moses. 

We  have  endeavored  to  show  the  striking  differences 
between  the  Mosaic  and  all  Pagan  cosmogonies.  And 
yet  the  proof  is  abundant  that  the  latter  were  derived 
from  the  former.  Amid  all  their  contortions  and  deform- 
ities, the  old  features  are  still  visible.  The  derived 
myths  are  full  of  the  legendary,  the  monstrous,  the  inco- 
herent; and  the  reason  is  not  difficult  to  discover. 
These  deformities  will  be  generally  found  to  have  come 
from  the  perversion  of  what  is  strictly  phenomenal  lan- 
guage into  an  actual  identity  with  the  ineffable  fact  it  was 
employed  to  represent.  We  may  give  a  good  example 
of  this  by  calling  to  mind  again  what  was  said  about  that 
word  n^htite,  merahepheili^  Genesis,  i,  2.  "And  the 
spirit  hovered  or  brooded  over  the  waters."  The  term 
is  very  pecuHar.  It  denotes  a  rapid,  fluttering,  throbbing 
motion,  such  as  we  naturally  associate  with  warm  inward 
feeling.     From  such  a  conception  of  pulsation  or  throh- 


THE  BROODING   SPIRIT.  297 

hing  comes  the  sense  it  has,  Jeremiah,  xiii,  9.  Hence,  too, 
its  connection  with  the  idea  of  life  and  love  as  kindred, 
or  perhaps  identical,  states  of  being.  It  appears,  espe- 
cially in  its  Syriac  use,  and  this  is  entitled  to  the  greater 
consideration  from  the  fact  that  we  have  reason  to  regard 
the  Sjriac  as  even  an  older  branch  of  the  Shemitic  family 
than  the  Hebrew,  and  as  having  thus  preserved  more  of 
the  primitive  force  and  life  of  the  root.  In  this  language, 
which,  at  all  events,  was  derived  from,  and  closely  related 
to,  the  ancient  vernacular  of  Laban  and  the  fathers  of 
Abraham,  Si^rn  has  the  same  sense  with  the  Hebrew  t=hi, 
that  is,  to  love  with  the  most  tender  affection,  as  a  mother 
loves  her  offspring.  Hence  the  Syriac  noun,  «2hin, 
affectus  vehemens,  amor  intensus  ac  tener ;  as  we  find 
it  in  numerous  places  of  the  Syriac  versions  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testament.  The  same  term  also  signifies  the 
fluttering  and  brooding  motion  of  a  bird,  and  hence  the 
sense  of  cherishing  and  warming  which  the  Hebrew  verb 
possesses,  Deuteronomy,  xxxii,  2.  In  all  these  aspects 
we  judge  of  its  application  to  the  action  of  the  Kuah 
Elohim,  Genesis,  i,  2,  Qui  rudi  terrae  moli  incubabat 
fovens  et  vivificans.  Gresenius.  Now  from  these  old  con- 
ceptions connected  with  this  remarkable  word,  and  from 
what  is  said  in  another  part,  of  the  over-brooded  waters 
bringing  forth  the  fish  and  creeping  things,  has  come 
that  wide-spread  myth  of  incubation,  or  the  origin  of  all 
things  from  the  creative  egg,  an  idea  which  is  to  be 
found  more  or  less  in  all  mythologies.  They  confounded 
the  representative  image  with  the  fact,  or  put  it  for  the 
fact.  There  is  also  something  very  striking  in  the  ana- 
logy, if  it  is  not  something  more  than  analogy,  which  is 
suggested  by  the  known  steps  in  the  process  of  incuba- 


298  THE  MYTH   OF  THE  EGG. 

tion.  The  egg  is  primarily  like  the  earth,  a  fluid,  color- 
less, formless  and  unarranged.  The  first  effect,  the  first 
start  of  fife,  is  in  a  pulsatile  or  throbbing  motion  commu- 
nicated to  the  whole  mass.  It  is  the  first  beat  of  what 
is  in  the  beginning  the  every  where  diffused  heart,  and 
this  is  the  commencement  of  that  series,  or  'r^oxk  ysviasus*, 
or  "wheel  of  generation,"  which,  after  it  has  run  its 
round  of  appointed  dai/s  or  periods,  comes  forth  a  finished 
microcosm,  with  all  its  sofids  and  fluids  so  arranged  as  to 
constitute  an  organic  harmony  in  most  striking  contrast 
with  its  former  dark  and  chaotic  state.  "We  do  not  won- 
der that  in  so  many  myths  the  egg,  together  with  the 
process  of  incubation,  has  been  taken  as  the  symbol  of 
the  world's  birth  and  growth.  But  as  we  have  said,  it 
was  a  confounding  of  the  phenomenal  language  with  the 
ultimate  and  ineffable  fact,  and  this  has  been  the  source 
of  all  similar  perversions. 

From  these  early  senses  of  the  Hebrew  and  Syriac 
words,  came  the  corresponding  myth  of  Eros  or  Love, 
as  one  of  the  oldest  powers  in  the  birth  of  the  world. 
Hence,  doubtless,  the  source  of  that  remarkable  repre- 
sentation which  Aristophanes  sets  forth  in  his  Comedy 
of  the  Birds.  We  give  a  very  literal  prose  translation 
— "  Chaos  was,  and  Night,  and  Erebus  black,  and  Tar 
tarus  wide.  No  earth,  nor  air,  nor  sky  was  yet ;  when 
in  the  immeasurable  bosom  of  Erebus  (or  the  chaotic 
darkness,  tra-inn  "^ss-^?,)  ivinged  Night  brought  forth 
first  of  all  the  egg  from  which,  in  after  revolving  periods, 
sprang  Eros,  the  much  desired,  gfittering  with  golden 
wings,  and  Eros,  again,  in  union  with  Chaos,  produced 
the  brood  of  the  human  race,  and  brought  it  first  to 

1,  iii,  6,    Ecclesiastes,  xii,  6. 


HESIODEAN   GENEALOGY.  299 

light."  Hence  that  old  myth,  of  which  there  is  such 
frequent  mention  in  the  later  Orphic  hymns,  of  Phanes, 
or  the  Light,  the  visible,  the  2^^ieno7ne7ial,  that  is  first 
born  from  the  egg,  and  who,  on  this  account,  is  called 
mysvYig.  The  intelhgent  reader  must  see  here  this  same 
idea  that  appears  in  the  fragments  of  Empedocles,  and 
in  some  of  the  traditions  of  Plato.  Eros,  or  Love,  is  the 
great  principle  of  beauty,  order  and  harmony,  the  first 
born,  in  the  order  of  creation,  and  the  introducer  of  order 
and  harmony  in  all  that  follows. 

The  references  to  the  chaos  are  much  more  numerous 
and  striking.  We  can  only  briefly  give  them  without 
occupying  space  in  comment,  which,  perhaps,  for  most 
readers,  would  be  unnecessary.  The  lines  from  Hesiod 
have  been  already  quoted.  Chaos  was  the  first  horn, 
then  the  "  broad-bosomed  Earth,"  then  Eros,  or  Love. 
From  Chaos  were  born  Nox  (nighty  and  Erebus.  From 
Nox  was  born  Aether  and  Day.  This  order  is  invariable. 
In  all  mythologies,  oriental  or  occidental,  night  is 
before  the  day,  just  as  it  is  in  the  Mosaic  order.*  We 
might  make  numerous  extracts  to  the  same  purpose  from 
the  Argonautica  of  Apollonius,  but  these  are  to  be  regard- 
ed as  the  mere  echo  of  the  older  poets.  One  passage  is 
remarkable  for  the  prominence  it  gives  to  that  idea  of 
separation  or  division  which  is  so  repeated  in  Genesis, 
"  He  sang  how  earth,  and  sky,  and  sea,  were  mingled 
all  in  one  common  mass  and  form,  and  how  each  was 
parted  from  the  other," 

5i;'x^i^£v  a[t.(^lg  Sxatfra.     Lib.  I,  496. 

*  So  Plutarch,  in  his  Treatise  on  the  question,  Quis  est 
Detis  Judceorum,  or  Who  is  the  God  of  the  Jews  ?  (Leip. 
vol.  14,  p.  283,)  says  that  the  Egyptians  maintained  that 
Night,  or  the  darkness,  was  older  than  the  Pay. 


300  homer's  myth  of  oceanus. 

To  the  same  effect,  the  remarkable  lines  from  the  Frag 
ment  of  Euripides  Menalippus, 

ug  ou^avo'g  rs  yaTa  <r'  rjv  /xo^fpT^   juiia, 
iitsl  6'  EXaPI20H2AN  aXX>jXwv  ^.'^a 
T/xrourfi  <7ravTa.* 

Here  is  the  same  idea  of  separation  as  when  we  read  in 
Genesis,  "And  God  divided  the  light  from  the  dark- 
ness," "the  waters  from  the  waters,"—"  And  God  said. 
Let  the  waters  be  gathered  together,  and  let  the  dry 
land  appear."  Plato  finds  a  cosmogonical  myth  in  that 
Orphic  line  of  Homer  (Iliad,  xiv,  201,  302,  Plato  Cra- 
tylus,  401,  C.)  in  which  he  represents  "  Oceanus  as  the 
parent  or  genesis  of  all  things."  Homer  doubtless 
received  it  as  a  mere  myth,  and  employs  it  in  his  poetry 
without  any  higher  idea.  But  Plato  regards  it  as  pre- 
senting the  prominent  thought  which  the  philosopher 
Thales  had  derived  from  some  old  source,  that  water 
was  the  primitive  generative  element.  No  careful  reader 
of  the  Bible  can  fail  to  see  that  it  has  travelled  down 
from  a  still  greater  antiquity,  and  is,  in  fact,  the  Mosaic 
representation  of  the  original  state  of  the  earth  as  a 
mass  of  waters,  and  afterwards  (verse  20)  of  the  "  waters 
bringing  forth  abundantly  the  moving  things  that  have 
life."  Hence,  too,  -^schylus  calls  the  sea,  or  the  water, 
under  its  feminine  name,  ■rr'oXuTsxvog  Tri&v?,  prolific  or  all- 
breeding  Tethys,  (Prom.  Vine.  137.)  It  may  be  thought 
that  she  is  so  styled  from  being  the  fabled  mother  of  the 
numerous  Oceanides,  but  these  are  only  another  mythi- 
cal expression  of  the  old  idea.     The  very  name  imphes 

*  How  Heaven  and  Earth  of  old  were  all  one  form,  and 
when  they  were  parted  from  each  other,  they  gave  birth  to 
all  things,  etc. 


KRONOS  SON  OF  URANUS.  301 

maternal  fertility,  and  cannot  be  mistaken.  She  is 
Tethys  Tri&vs,  (from  'tti^?!  or  7it&/j,  mamma,)  the  nurse  as 
well  as  the  mother  of  the  lower  animation,  or  the  "  mov- 
ing and  creeping  things  in  the  waters  that  have  life," 
and  which  "  God  commanded  her  to  bring  forth  abun- 
dantly."* 

Traces  may  be  discovered  in  the  Greek  poets,  and  in 
the  earliest  Greek  physical  writers,  of  almost  every  lead- 
ing fact  in  the  successive  order  of  the  six  periods, —  the 
separation  of  the  land  from  the  waters  —  the  appearance 
of  the  lights  in  the  firmament,  and  the  appointment  of 
them  for  signs  and  seasons.  Of  this  latter,  the  notices 
are  frequent,  and  sometimes  expressed  in  terms  whose 
resemblance  to  the  Mosaic  language  is  striking  and 
unmistakable.  We  need  only  refer  the  reader  to  the 
example  quoted  in  a  previous  chapter  from  the  astronom- 
ical poet  Aratus.  So,  also,  in  a  well  known  part  of 'the 
Greek  Mythology,  Kronos  (or  Chronos)  is  the  son  of 
Uranus,  and  succeeds  him  in  the  kingdom.  In  the 
Latin  myth  there  is  the  same  relation  between  Saturn 
and  Coelus.  Translate  the  Greek  genealogy  and  it  would 
read.  Time  the  son  of  Heaven.  It  certainly  looks  very 
much  like  a  mythical  representation  of  the  great  Mosaic 
fact,  that  time  (that  is,  regular  measurable  time)  began 
from  the  ordinances  or  appointment  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  on  the  fourth  day,  when  "  their  dominion  was 
set  up  in  the  earth."  Can  we  doubt,  too,  which  is  the 
oldest  here,  the  great  supernatural  fact,  as  it  is  given  in 

*  So,  also,  Cicero  De  Nat.  Deor.  Lib.  I,  10,— Thales 
enim  Milesius  qui  primus  de  fcalibus  rebus  quaesivit,  aquam 
dixit  esse  initium  rerura ;  Deum  autem  earn  mentem  quae 
ex  aqua  cuncta  fingeret. 

26 


302  DIODORUS  SICULUS. 

the  Bible,  or  the  mythical  idea  as  it  presents  itself  in  the 
Greek  mythology  ? 

But  not  to  weary  the  reader  with  numerous  refer- 
ences, it  may  be  enough  to  set  forth  somewhat  more  fully 
the  account  given  by  Diodorus  Siculus  in  his  history,  and 
by  Ovid  in  his  Metamorphoses.  Both  of  these,  it  is  true, 
are  late  writers.  They  aim,  however,  to  give  us  the 
oldest  Greek  ideas  of  cosmogony,  but  in  such  a  way  as 
shows  that  they  must  have  had  some  fuller,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  more  specific  traditions  than  could  have  been 
derived  solely  from  Hesiod.  Whether  they  came  from 
Sanchoniatho,  or  from  some  writings  of  greater  authen- 
ticity than  the  fragments  which  are  ascribed  to  him,  is 
of  little  consequence.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  their 
oriental  source,  or  of  their  wonderful  agreement  with  the 
main  aspects  of  the  Mosaic  account.  The  historian 
Diodorus  presents  us  first  the  question  which  prevailed 
in  the  ancient  world,  whether  the  human  race  were  eter- 
nal or  had  had  a  birth  and  a  beginning  in  time.  From  the 
most  ancient  men  (a<o  <rwv  (x^;)(^ajoTccTwv)  this  he  says  was 
the  account  handed  down — "In  the  beginning  the  earth 
and  heaven  had  one  consistence,  one  idea.  Nature  was 
a  mingled  mass.  Afterwards  the  kosmos  received  the 
order  which  it  now  possesses  by  means  of  the  separation 
of  substances  from  each  other.  The  fiery  rose  first  to 
the  higher  places.  The  atmosphere  received  a  constant 
state  and  motion.  By  the  separation  of  the  waters  the 
earthy  slime  acquired  consistency  and  gravity.  The  sun 
and  other  heavenly  bodies,  on  the  other  hand,  being  of 
a  fiery  nature,  rose  in  the  firmament  and  shared  in  the 
universal  rolling  of  the  kosmos.  Next  follows  the  pro- 
cess of  vegetation,  then  the  birth  of  the  animal  races — 


MOSES   AND    OVID.  303 

and  finally  man  makes  his  appearance  upon  the  earth."* 
The  whole  account,  which  we  have  epitomized  rather  than 
closely  translated,  concludes  with  the  quotation  from 
the  fragment  of  the  Melanippus  of  Euripides  which  has 
been  already  given,  and  where  this  idea  of  separation  is 
so  prominently  put  forth. 

The  commencement  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  is  more 
remarkable,  and  deserves  a  more  minute  examination. 
It  is  commonly  said  that  he  took  his  cosmology  from  the 
Greek  poets,  but  there  is  more  here  than  we  find  in 
Hesiod,  or  in  anything  that  can  be  claimed  as  belonging 
to  the  Orphic  age.  Hesiod  is  confused ;  here  is  a 
striking  order.  The  Greek  poet  is  predominantly,  and, 
we  may  say,  wholly  physical ;  the  theism  of  Ovid  is 
not  only  clear,  but  lofty.  Hesiod  presents  us,  now  and 
then,  with  separate  features  of  the  Mosaic  account ;  the 
Roman  poet  astonishes  us  by  his  wonderful  agreement 
with  that  order  of  events  which  is  the  grand  peculiarity 
of  the  Bible  cosmology.  "We  might  take  the  language  of 
Genesis  verse  by  verse,  and  almost  paraphase  it  by  cor- 
responding expressions  from  Ovid,  which,  although  more 
full  in  their  poetical  redundance,  yet  present  a  remark- 
able resemblance,  not  only  in  general  significance,  but 
in  etymological  imagery. 

"  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth.  And  the  earth  was  without  form  and  void,"  — 
inanis  et  vacua. 

Dii  cocptis  (nam  vos  mutastis  et  illas) 
Aspirate  meis ;  primaqice  ab  origine  mundi 
Ad  mea  perpetuum  deducite  tempora  carmen. 
Ante*  mare  et  tellus,  et  quod  tegit  omnia,  coelum, 
Unus  erat  toto  nat^l^ae  vultus  in  orbe, 

DioA  Sic ,  Lib.  I,  Ch.  7. 


804  MOSES   AND   OVID. 

Quern  dixere  Chaos ;  rudis  indigostaquc  moles 

Nee  quicquam  nisi  pondus  iners,  congestaque  eodem 

Non  bene  junctarum  discordia  semina  rerum.* 

"  And  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  abyss." 

Quaque  fuit  tcllus,  illic  et  pontus  et  aer; 
Sic  erat  instabilis  tcllus,  innabilis  unda, 
Lucis  egens  aer.    Nulli  sua  fonna  manebat.f 

''And  God  said,  let  there  be  light,  and  there  was  light. 
And  God  divided  the  light  from  the  darkness." 

Et  liquidum  spisso  secrevit  ab  aere  coehim. 
Quae  postquam  evolvit  caecoque  exemit  acervo, 
Dissociata  locis  concordi  pace  ligavitj 

"And  God  said,  let  there  be  a  firmament,  (or  sky,)  in 
the  midst  of  the  waters,  and  let  it  divide  the  waters  from 
the  waters  —  or  the  fluids  from  the  fluids." 

Ignea  convexi  vis  et  sine  pondere  coeli 
Emicuit  summaque  locum  sibi  legit  in  arce. 
Proximus  est  aer  illi,  levitate  locoque.§ 

Circumfluus  humor 

Ultima  possedit,  solidumque  coercuit  orbem. 

*  "  In  the  beginning  the  sea,  and  land,  and  the  all-covering 
heaven,  was  all  one  appearance  of  nature  throughout  the  whole 
world ;  which  they  called  Chaos,  a  rude  and  indigested  mass. 
There  was  nought  but  inactive  weight  and  the  inharmonious 
seeds  of  ill-joined  things  all  heaped  together." 

f  Wherever  there  was  land,  there  too  was  air  and  sea. 
There  was  no  standing  on  the  land,  no  swimming  in  the  water. 
The  atmosphere  was  without  light.  Nothing  retained  any 
permanent  form." 

I  "  He  separated  the  clear  heaven  from  the  thick  au* ;  which 
after  he  had  brought  out  and  taken  from  the  dark  heap,  he 
bound  together  in  harmonious  peace." 

§  "  The  fiery  force  of  the  heaven,  being  convex  and  without 
weight,  sprang  forth  and  took  its  place  in  the  highest  arc.  The 
air  is  next  in  lightness  and  position.  The  circumfluent  water 
took  possession  of  the  lower  region  and  confined  the  solid 
globe."  The  reader  will  see  how  the  Latin  poet  attempts  to 
philosophize.  Moses  contents  himself  with  the  mighty  super- 
natural/ac^ 


MOSES   AND    OVID.  305 

"And  God  said,  let  the  waters  which  are  under  the  skj 
be  gathered  together  in  one  place,  and  let  the  dry  land 
appear  (or  be  seen) .  And  God  called  the  dry  land  earth, 
and  the  gathering  together  of  the  waters  he  called  seas." 

Sic  ubi  dispositiim,  quisquie  fuit  ille  Deoriun, 
Congeriem  secuit,  sectamquc  in  membra  redegit , 
Principio  terram,  ne  non  equalis  ab  omni  ^ 

Parte  foret,  magni  speciem  glomeravit  in  orbis, 
Turn  freta  diffiindi  rapidisquo  turaescore  ventia, 
Jussit  et,  ambitao  circumdare  litora  terrae.* 

^*  And  let  the  dry  land  appear." 

Ju8sit  et  extendi  campos,  subeidere  yalles, 
Fronde  tegi  eilvas,  lapidosos  surgere  montes.t 

''And  God  said  —  Let  there  be  Hghts  in  the  firma- 
ment of  the  heavens."  The  language  of  Genesis  gives 
the  impression  that  this  was  phenomenal,  or  it  represents 
the  appearance  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  not  their 
absolute  creation.  In  Ovid  the  phenomenal  idea  is 
unmistakable.  The  sun  and  stars  which  had  been  hid- 
den in  the  chaos  now  shine  forth. 

Vix  ea  liraitibus  dissepsernt  omnia  certis; 
Cum,  quae  pressa  diu  maesa  latuere  sub  ilia 
Sidcra,  coeperunt  toto  effervcscere  coelo.. 

The  periods   of  vegetation  and  of  animal  life,  are 

*  *'  When  it  was  thus  disposed,  he  divided  the  mass  (who- 
ever of  the  Gods  it  was)  and  then  reduced  it  to  its  parts. 
In  the  first  place  he  rolled  up  the  land  in  the  shape  of  a  great 
globe,  lest  it  should  not  be  equal  in  every  part.  Then  he 
ordered  the  seas  to  be  spread  abroad,  and  swell  with  the  rapid 
winds,  and  draw  a  shore  quite  round  the  enclosed  earth." 

t."  Then  he  commanded  the  plains  to  be  spread  abroad,  the 
vallies  to  sink,  the  woods  to  be  covered  with  foliage,  and  the 
granite  mountains  to  arise." 

X  "  Scarcely  had  he  thus  separated  all  things  by  fixed  boun- 
daries, when  the  stars  which  had  lain  hid  for  a  long  time 
under  that  mass  of  chaos,  began  to  glow  all  over  heaven/' 
26* 


306  MOSES   AND   OVID. 

barely  touched  upon,  but  the  introduction  of  man  at  the 
close  of  the  description  is  truly  sublime. 

Terra  feras  cepit ;  volucres  agitabilis  aer, 
Sanctius  his  animal,  mentisque  capacius  altae 
Deerat  adhuc,  et  quod  dominari  in  cactera  posset.* 

Creation  was  unfinished.  There  was  yet  wanting  an 
animal  of  a  holier^  that  is,  a  more  separate  nature,  and 
who  might  exercise  dominion  over  the  rest.  Whilst 
others  went  bending  down  with  their  faces  to  the  earth, 
there  was  demanded  one  that  could  lift  its  eye  to  heaven, 
and  gaze  upon  the  stars.     Thus,  Man  tvas  born,- 

"Natus  heme  est," 

in  the  image  of  the  all-ruling  divinities. 

Finxit  inieffigiemimoderantinn  cuncta  Deeniw, 
Pronaque  cum  spectant  animalia  caetera  terrasa 
Os  homini  sublime  dedit ;  cmlumque  tueri 
Jussit,  et  erect03  ad  sidera  tollere  vultus. 

The  passage  is  well  known,  but  no  triteness  can  ever 
detract  from  its  pure  subHmity,  or  the  force  with  which 
it  reminds  the  reader  of  the  Scriptural  account  of  the 
reasons  and  manner  of  the  human  origin. 

***The  earth  received  its  beasts,  the  volatile  air  its  birds. 
One  more  divine  was  wanting  yet,  of  wider,  deeper  soul,  and 
born  to  rule  the  rest." 


CHAPTER   XXIY. 


ANCIENT  IDEA  OF  CREATION  AS  A  GENESIS  OR  GROWTH, 
The  idea  of  a  genesis  held  by  the  ancient  Theists. — Consistent  with 

THE    BELIEF    IN  *A  DiVINE    WORK.— AkISTOTLE.— PlATO. — AnAXAGOKAS.— ThE 

Fathebs. — Augustine.— Genesis  the  name  given  in  the  Septuagint. — The 
Jewish  notion  of  a  growth  or  nature. — Hebrew  words  of  generation^ 
The  sacred  writers  fond  of  representing  the  world  as  a  birth. — 
Abe    these    expressions    metaphors  ? — If    metaphors,  they  would  not 

HAVE  grown   out  OF  MODERN  IDEAS 

In  connection  with  what  has  been  said  respecting  the  old 
cosmogonies,  it  may  be  well  to  oflfer  a  few  thoughts  on 
the  ancient  idea  of  creation  generally,  and  the  difference 
between  it  and  the  more  modern  conception  of  instanta- 
neous or  very  rapid  production  from  a  previous  state  of 
non-existence,  with  few  or  no  intervening  media.  The 
ancient  view,  even  when  it  was  theistic,  or  took  in  the 
belief  of  a  divine  work,  still  inclined  every  where  to  the 
idea  of  a  growth,  a  genesis^  or  generation,  a  birth,  a  com- 
ing out  of  one  thing  from  another,  or  the  becoming  of 
one  thing  from  another,  through  a  series  of  what  may  be 
called  natural  causalities.  It  was  not  exactly  the  view 
that  modern  science  would  connect  with  the  terms  cause 
and  effect ;  yet  still  there  were  prominent  in  it  those 
ideas  of  generation  or  growth  which  we  cannot  well  sepa* 
rate  from  the  thought  of  natural  production,  however 
affected  by  a  supernatural  energy.  The  present  world 
was  a  9!^«^'ff, — it  grew — it  was  bom — it  came  from 
something  antecedent,  not  merely  as  a  cause,  but  as  its 
seed,  embryo,  or  principium. 


308  ANAXAGOKAS,   PLATO,  ARISTOTLE. 

Along  with  this  there  might  be  also  held,  and  was 
held,  the  notion  of  a  divine  origin,  more  or  less  distinct, 
according  to  the  more  or  less  pious  state  of  the  mind 
that  entertained  it.  If  we  go  to  the  two  great  schools 
of  philosophy,  it  is  well  known  that  Aristotle  held  to  an 
eternal  unoriginated  causality,  whilst  Plato  gave  to  the 
universe  a  distinct  theistic  origin,  yet  still  through  a 
genesis  or  generation.  His  world  was  a  Zwov,  a  living 
thing,  and  also  a  natural  production.  It  was  born,  and 
grew.  Anaxagoras  regarded  Nou^,  or  Mind,  as  the  Prin- 
cipium,  but  then  it  made  the  world,  and  kept  the  world 
in  order  through  forces,  and  elements,  and  causalities. 
It  generated  the  elements  and  the  primary  powers  of 
nature,  and  then  employed  them  in  the  composition  raid 
regulation  of  the  secondary  bodies,  or  systems.  This 
duality  of  idea  belonged  to  the  common  mind, —  at  least, 
to  all  thinking  minds,  whether  philosophers,  or  not.  We 
see  the  two  elements  of  it  in  the  early  words  KoVfA-o^  and 
(p^V/j,  both  used  to  denote  the  world, — the  one  implying 
order,  harmony,  thought,  in  a  word,  mind, —  the  other, 
growth,  birth,  causation,  which  are  only  other  names  for 
natural  or  mediate  production. 

In  the  Greek  philosophy,  —  we  mean  the  best  Greek 
philosophy,  the  Stoic  and  Platonic,  in  distinction  from 
the  Epicurean, —  or  in  the  philosophy  which  prevailed 
in  the  world  at  the  coming  of  Christianity,  and  which 
more  or  less  affected  the  minds  of  the  earliest  Christian 
Fathers,  these  ideas  of  a  growth  or  genesis  were  predom- 
inant. The  Fathers  say  distinctly  that  the  universe, 
that  is  the  matter  of  the  universe,  came  from  nothing  by 
the  fiat  of  God.  They  regarded  themselves  as  held  to 
such  a  view  both  from  reason  and  the  Scripture.     But 


PATRISTIC   IDEA   OF   CREATION.  309 

this  did  not  preclude  them  from  maintaining,  along  with 
it,  these  generative  ideas  of  creation,  and  especially  in 
respect  to  the  present  world.  Hence,  as  we  have  seen, 
Augustine  does  not  hesitate  to  call  the  creative  periods 
natures ;  as  when  he  speaks  of  the  evening  being  the 
termination  of  one  nature,  and  the  morning  the  com- 
mencement of  another.  So,  also,  Plato  held  to  matter 
being  produced  somehow,  and  somewhere,  in  time  and 
space ;  otherwise  his  great  argument  that  soul  must  be 
older  than  matter  has  no  force. 

But  creation  itself  was  a  making  of  worlds,  not  neces- 
sarily an  origination  of  matter.  No  man  can  read  Augus- 
tine without  being  struck  with  the  difference  between 
his  language  and  the  phraseology  that  has  grown  out  of 
the  more  modern  conceptions.  And  so  of  the  other 
Fathers.  We  may  say,  too,  that  with  all  their  fondness 
for  the  startling  supernatural,  a  similar  mode  of  thinking 
was  more  or  less  famihar  to  the  Hebrews.  .  Modern 
thinking  is  inclined  to  the  other  extreme,  to  regard  all 
before  the  Adamic  period  as  supernatural,  without  a 
recognition  of  growth  or  nature,  unless  by  the  briefest 
steps,  and  all  succeeding  the  creation  of  man  as  wholly 
or  mainly  natural.  The  old  Hebrew  mind,  on  the  other 
hand,  freely  introduced  each  class  of  events  into  each 
period.  The  writers  of  the  Bible  speak  of  the  generation 
of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  as  they  speak  of  the  gene 
rations  of  the  Patriarchs  ;  whilst  in  the  flood,  in  the  pas> 
sage  of  the  Red  Sea,  in  the  descent  upon  Sinai,  and  in 
all  the  extraordinary  events  that  mark  the  Jewish  history, 
there  is  the  same  supernatural  power,  both  in  mode  and 
essence,  that  built  the  firmament,  and  divided  the  land 
from  the  waters.     In  fact,  it  is  the  mixture  of  the  two, 


310  OLD   TESTAMENT  VIEW   OF  THE   WORLD. 

this  distinct  recognition  of  the  natural  and  supernatural 
—  of  God's  direct  power  and  a  course  of  nature- — that 
forms  the  leading  feature  of  the  Old  Testament  view  of 
the  world.  It  was  the  great  wheel,  and  the  wheel  within 
a  wheel  of  Ezekiel's  vision ;  but,  then,  there  was  a  Liv- 
ing Spirit  not  only  in  the  wheel,  but  separate  from  and 
above  the  wheels,  —  a  "voice  from  the  firmament  that 
was  over  the  heads  of  the  Living  Creatures  when  they 
stood  and  let  down  their  wings."*  In  such  a  recogni- 
tion of  nature,  we  have  a  full  security  against  pantheism. 
The  Ruah  Elohim, — both  in  creation  and  providence, — is 
at  the  same  time  +ux^  iyxotfij.ia  and  +ux^  uirs^xo(f(xla.  It 
is  in  nature,  and  at  the  same  time  before  nature  and  above 
nature. 

We  see  the  wide-spread  ancient  idea  in  the  name  given 
in  the  Septuagint,  or  Greek  version,  to  the  first  book  of 
the  Bible.  They  called  it  Grenesis,  (3i(3Xos  ysvscfsus  ou^a- 
vou  xai  yrjs,  Q-enerationes  coeli  et  terrae^  (Vulgate')^ 
The  Book  of  the  G-eneration  of  the  world  ;  and  there  is 
much  in  the  fact  that  such  a  name  did  not  at  all  shock 
the  pious  Jews  who  lived  when  that  version  was  made, 
and  who  used  it  so  extensively  in  their  synagogues.  It 
did  not  offend  their  own  belief,  or  the  view  they  enter- 
tained in  respect  to  the  belief  of  their  ancestors.  And 
why  should  they  have  been  shocked,  since  in  the  very 
beginning  of  their  own  venerated  Hebrew  book  there  was 
a  word  of  the  same  radical  idea,  employed  not  merely 
of  human  genealogies,  but  in  reference  to  the  very  crea- 
tion itself?  In  the  expression  rendered  the  generations 
of  the  heavens  and  the  earthy  the  Hebrew  word  is  rihV'in, 
from  a  root  signifying  to  be  beget^  to  generate^  to  give 

*  Ezekiel,  i,  25. 


BIBLE   IDEA   OF  BIRTH   OR  NATURE.  311 

Urth^  precisely  as  the  Greek  root  from  whence  comes  the 
word  genesis^  and  the  Latin  from  whence  our  word  na- 
ture. The  Latin,  the  Greek,  the  Hebrew  word,  are 
exact  equivalents,  both  in  their  etymological  conception 
of  growth  or  birth,  and  their  derived  appHcations  to  the 
human  and  mundane  organizations. 

But  the  idea  is  not  confined  to  the  usage  of  this  root. 
We  meet  with  it  in  other  parts  of  the  Bible,  and  as 
expressed  by  other  Hebrew  words  of  generation.  We 
may  even  say  it  is  a  favorite  method  thus  to  set  forth  the 
origin  and  subsequent  history  of  the  world  as  a  birth  and 
growth,  or  in  other  words  —  a  nature.  The  Hebrew 
writers  do  not  seem  to  think  such  language  inconsistent 
with,  but  rather  to  magnify,  the  divine  glory.  To  say 
that  it  is  poetical  is  a  very  inadequate  explanation  of  the 
philological  fact.  It  never  would  have  been  in  the  lan- 
guage of  poetry  had  it  not  had  some  previous  deep 
ground  in  the  human  conception.  Would  such  meta- 
phors, if  they  may  be  called  metaphors,  have  grown  out 
of  that  mode  of  thinking  which  we  have  characterized  as 
the  modern  in  distinction  from  the  Greek,  the  Patristic, 
and  the  Jemsh  ?  "•  Before  the  mountains  were  horn  or 
thou  hadst  hr ought  to  tlie  hirth  the  earth  and  the  world, 
from  everlasting  unto  everlasting  thou  art,  0  God,'' 
Psalms,  xc,  2.  Both  the  Hebrew  verbs  here  belong  to  the 
class  of  which  we  have  been  speaking.  They  are  both 
verbs  of  generation.  The  first,  11^.%  is  the  one  on  which 
we  have  already  commented,  and  from  which  comes  the 
noun  employed,  Genesis,  ii,  4,  to  denote  those  successive 
steps  in  the  creative  history  of  the  world  that  are  there 
called  "  the  generations  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 
It  represents  the  mountains  as  having  groivn  Hke  the 


312      BIBLE  IDEA  OF  BIRTH  OR  NATURE. 

foetus  or  embryo  in  the  womb.  The  other  verb,  VVihPi^, 
our  translators  have  generalized.  Its  sense,  however,  of 
generation  or  birth  is  well  established,  both  in  the  active 
and  passive  forms.  Taken  here  as  the  second  person  of 
the  active,  it  would  have  the  meaning  we  have  given  it, 
and  as  we  find  it  used,  Psalms,  xxix,  9,  Job,  xxxix,  4, 
Isaiah,  Ivii,  2,  Deuteronomy,  xxxii,  18,  where  it  is 
appKed  to  the  action  of  Deity,  and  Proverbs,  xxv,  23, 
where  it  is  directly  used  to  denote  natural  causation,  and 
should  be  rendered,  "  the  north  wind  generates,  or  gives 
birth  to  the  rain."  The  Syriac  rendering  of  Psalms,  xc, 
2,  is  literally,  "before  the  mountains  were  carried  in  the 
womb,  or  even  the  earth  was  born.^^  In  the  same  man" 
ner  does  the  Septuagint  translate  it  by  the  corresponding 
Greek  word  of  generation,  or  natural  production,  'iffo  rov 
0^7]  ysvYi^r^vai,  before  the  genesis  of  the  mountains.  From 
a  similar  conception  of  generative  causality  came  such 
expressions  as  we  have,  Job,  xxxviii,  28, — "  Who  hath 
begotten  the  drops  of  the  dew  ?  From  what  womb  came 
forth  the  cold,  and  the  frost  of  heaven  who  hath  gendered 
it  ?"  The  Hebrew  verbs  here  have  the  same  etymolo- 
gical meaning,  or  image,  that  we  have  found  in  those 
corresponding  Latin  and  Greek  roots  from  whence  have 
come  our  scientific  and  philosophical  language.  We 
might  render  the  verses  in  what  would  seem  the  coldest 
or  most  prosaic  dialect  of  the  schools,  and  yet  the  radical 
phenomenal  sense  would  remain  unchanged.  "What 
cause  hath  generated  the  drops  of  the  dew  ?  What  is 
the  genesis  of  the  cold,  and  the  frost  of  heaven,  whence 
has  it  its  nature?^''  The  images  are  still  there.  They 
abide  as  firmly  in  our  Latin  Anglo-Saxon  word  nature, 
as  in  the  Hebrew  terms  which  we  pronounce  poetical 


DIVINE   POWER   IN   NATURE.  313 

because  their  primary  pictures  have  never  faded  away  in 
any  scientific  use. 

We  find  all  these  roots  not  simply  in  poetry,  but  in 
the  soberest  prose,  the  prose  of  the  Mosaic  narrative. 
Unless,  therefore,  we  are  prepared  to  call  all  descriptive 
language  poetical,  the  question  still  remains,  whence 
came  such  figures  ?  Or,  if  we  insist  upon  the  other  name, 
whence  such  poetical  usage  ?  It  may  seem  easily  answered 
after  we  have  become  familiar  with  the  usus  loquendi. 
Frequent  repetition  makes  it  appear  very  natural.  But 
the  more  one  reflects,  the  more  will  he  see  the  difficulty 
of  accounting  for  it  except  on  the  ground  that  the  earliest 
men  took  a  view  of  creation,  or  of  the  world's  origin, 
birth  and  growth,  quite  different  from  that  which  prevails 
in  our  most  modern  theology.  Such  metaphors  never 
would  have  grown  naturally  out  of  that  twenty-four  hour 
hypothesis  which  is  so  pertinaciously  maintained  by  those 
who  style  themselves  the  literal  interpreters.  It  was  the 
conception  of  a  nature,  and  yet  not  nature  simply.  To 
the  Jewish  mind,  especially,  it  was  the  Divine  power  work- 
ing through  nature, —  that  is,  through  those  methods  and 
processes  in  which  one  event  (e-venio)  seems  to  come- 
out  of  another,  and  to  which,  therefore,  we  rightly  give 
the  name  nature,  yivs/fig,  nnVSn,  so  uniform  in  its  radical 
conception,  however  remote  the  languages  through  which 
it  travels  down  to  us. 

In  accordance  with  this  mode  of  thinking  and  conceiv- 
ing, not  only  the  Greek  theistic  philosophers,  but  the 
Christian  Fathers,  many  of  them,  would  not  have  hesi- 
tated, and  did  not  hesitate  to  call  the  world  ysvriros,  and 
creation  /e'vec*?,  though  the  latter  were  driven  afterwards, 
in  the  Nicene  controversy,  to  make  the  very  proper  and 

27 


314   SAME  IDEA  IN  HEBREW,  GREEK  AND  LATIN. 

necessary  distinction  between  generation  in  time,  and 
the  eternal  generation  of  the  Logos,  the  "  First  Born 
before  all  creation."  But  we  have  here  to  do  with  the 
conception  itself,  and  the  influence  it  had  upon  their  lan- 
guage and  their  thinking.  By  tracing  these  words,  we 
find  that  this  conception  was  as  old  and  as  well  estabhshed 
in  the  Hebrew  as  in  the  Greek.  We  have  before  seen 
that  there  is  the  same  primary  idea  of  growth  and  birth 
in  the  Latin  creo^  creatio,  and  hence  in  our  own  familiar 
yet  loosely  interpreted  word. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


ANTIQUITY  OF  THE  LOGOS. 

INTERPRETATION   OP  PROVERBS,   VIII,   AND   MICAH,  V-^  1. 

Creation  the  grand  epic  of  Hebrew  poetry. — Antiquity  op  wisdom. — 
Proverbs,  viii. — Is  it  a  personification  T — Language  of  Paul  in  Colos- 
siANS. — Translation  of  Proverbs,  viii. — Inrerpretation.— The  design 
OF  the  passage.— To  set  forth  great  antiquity. — The  "highest  part 

OF  THE    dust    of    THE    WORLD." — WlSDOM    REJOICES   IN    CREATION. — REJOICES 
EXCEEDINGLY  IN    THE   CREATION   OF  MAN. — INTERPRETATION  OF  MiCAH,  V,  1. — 

Psalm  ex. — The  word  olam. — Time  in  the  Bible  as  distinguished  from 

ETERNITY. — TiME    BIEASURES. — DIFFICULT   PROBLEM. — RASHNESS   OF  SCIENCE. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  mainly  occupied  with  the  narra- 
tive in  Genesis ;  but,  as  has  been  remarked  before,  creation 
is  the  grand  event  of  the  Hebrew  poetry.  The  Psalms, 
the  Prophets,  the  Proverbs,  and  the  Book  of  Job,  abound 
in  allusions  to  it.  In  short,  it  is  one  of  the  chief  store- 
houses of  their  poetical  imagery.  It  is  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance, then,  to  get  a  right  view  of  the  manner  in  which" 
it  impressed  the  minds  of  the  Hebrew  writers  themselves. 
It  is  the  true  way  to  get  rid  of  any  wrong  modern  pre- 
possessions, if  we  have  any. 

Among  extended  passages  having  a  most  suggestive 
bearing  on  our  main  question,  we  would  refer  especially 
to  what  is  said  of  the  "going  forth"  and  antiquity  of 
Wisdom,  Proverbs,  viii,  22-32.  This  portion  of  Scrip- 
ture is  very  remarkable  on  several  accounts.  The  older 
commentators  and  theologians  understood  it  generally  of 
the  Eternal  Word,  or  of  the  eternal  going  forth  of  the 


316     Paul's  idea  from  the  old  testament. 

Logos, — the  same  who  is  said,  John,  i,  14,  to  "have 
become  flesh  and  dwelt  among  'us."  Many  of  the 
moderns  have  rejected  this  view.  But  let  the  reader 
carefully  examine  Colossians,  i,  15-20,  John,  i,  3,  He- 
brews, i,  2,  3,  and  ask  himself,  where  did  these  writers 
get  their  doctrine  of  the  Creative  Word,  or  Logos  ? 
From  inspiration,  it  may  be  said.  Most  true,  indeed ; 
but  can  we  doubt  the  channel  of  that  inspiration  ?  When 
we  compare  the  similarity  of  language  and  idea,  can  we 
hesitate  to  believe  that  Paul  had  in  mind  both  the  spirit 
and  letter  of  this  and  similar  passages  from  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, in  what  he  says  of  "  Him  who  is  the  First  Born, 
or  born  before  all  creation,  who  is  the  image  of  the 
unseen  God,  and  in  whom,  and  through  whom,  were  all 
things  created,  both  in  heaven  and  earth,  both  the  seen 
and  the  unseen  f^* 

*  On  this  question,  so  germane  to  our  principal  subject,  we 
can  only  throw  together  here  what  might  be  deemed  the  heads 
of  a  more  extended  argument.  Among  these  may  be  mentioned, 

1st.  The  antiquity  of  the  idea.  In  the  fragments  of  oldest 
theologizing  that  have  come  down  to  us,  we  find  this  thought 
of  a  Word,  Logos,  Wisdom,  or  Nous,  as  something  divine,  yet 
intervening  between  Deity  and  the  world.  We  trace  it  in 
myths,  in  early  mystic  hymns,  in  the  religious  books  of  ancient 
nations,  especially  of  Persia  and  India.  It  makes  its  appear- 
ance in  the  profoundest  philosophy  of  a  later  period,  and 
finally  is  fully  confirmed  by  the  Gospel  revelation.  Some  of 
the  professedly  older  writings  in  which  we  find  it,  may  be 
spurious,  but  even  this  is  evidence  of  an  early  reality. .  The 
imitation  implies  an  original  of  some  kind. 

2d.  The  demand  of  the  reason,  or  the  need  we  have  of  such 
a  thought  to  avoid  the  extreme  of  atheism,  or  of  a  pantheism 
in  which  God  is  identified  with  the  universe. 

3d.  Intimations  in  the  First  of  Genesis,  and  in  some  other 
parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  might  very  easily  give  rise 
to  the  idea  in  a  thoughtful  Hebrew  mind, — such  as  the  going 


THE  ARCHITECTONAL  WISDOM.        317 

But  even  taking  it  as  a  personification  of  the  Archi- 
tectonal  Wisdom  and  its  everlasting  outgoings,  it  has  the 
same  important  bearing  upon  the  main  view  that  has 
been  presented  respecting  the  creative  days  or  periods. 

forth  of  the  Word  in  creation,  and  that  expression  of  plurality 
in  the  divine  existence,  or  at  least  of  duality.  Genesis,  i,  2(5, 
which  has  never  been  satisfactorily  explained  on  any  other 
idea — "Let  us  make  man  in  our  image." 

4th.  The  earliest  Jewish  interpretations  of  such  passages, 
and  especially  of  this  extended  one  in  Proverbs,  are  all  in 
favor  of  such  a  view.  The  expressions  in  the  Targums  are 
consistent  only  with  the  idea  of  a  real  hypostasis,  and  not  a 
mere  figure  of  speech.  Under  this  head  may  be  cited  Eccle- 
siasticus,  or  the  Book  of  Sirach,  Ch.  xxiv.  This  book  is 
apocryphal,  but  it  certainly  gives  us  the  then  Jewish  view  of 
the  Eighth  of  Proverbs,  of  which  it  is  an  evident  imitation. 
The  wi'iter  manifestly  alludes  to  the  going  forth  of  the  Word 
in  Genesis,  and  besides,  identifies  Wisdom  with  the  Angel  of 
the  Presence  that  accompanied  the  Children  of  Israel  in  the 
wilderness.  Here,  too,  reference  might  be  made  to  the  apo- 
cryphal Book  of  Enoch,  which  is  certainly  older  than  the 
Christian  Era.  It  contains  this  doctrine  of  the  Logos  most 
distinctly,  and  in  language  which  shows  that  the  writer  must 
have  derived  it  from  an  interpretation  of  this  very  passage, — 
Electus  et  Occultus  coram  eo  antequam  creabatur  mundus,  et 
usque  ad  secula  seculorum, — "  The  Elect  and  the  concealed 
one  existed  in  his  presence  hefore  the  world  was  created  and 
for  worlds  of  worlds.'"'  See  the  edition  of  Bishop  Laurence, 
Ch.  xlviii,  and  remarks,  page  225.  Compare,  also,  with  this 
the  other  apocryphal  book  entitled  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon, 
Ch.  vii,  22,  etc.  An  examination  of  such  passages  shows 
that  Philo  might  easily  have  obtained  his  doctrine  of  the  Logos 
from  Jewish  writings  without  any  necessity  of  resorting  for 
it  to  Plato. 

5th.  To  call  it  a  personification  settles  nothing.  If  there 
is  meant  by  the  word  a  mere  figure  of  speech,  the  answer  is 
that  such  figurative  personification  is  not  to  be  found  elsewhere 
in  the  Jewish  writings.  Inanimate  objects  are  frequently 
apostrophized,  but  such  personification  of  a  divine  attribute, 
especially  in  the  first  person,  is  utterly  without  any  other 

27* 


318  TRANSLATION    OF   PROVERBS,   VIII. 

In  setting  forth  the  passage,  the  reader  will  see  wherein 
we  slightly  depart  from  the  common  version.  For  the 
sense  given  to  the  first  Hebrew  verb,  nsp,  he  may  consult 
the  references  at  the  close  of  the  long  note,  and  espe- 
cialty.  Genesis,  xiv,  19,  22,  iv,  1,  in  the  latter  of  which 
passages  it  is  applied  to  the  first  recorded  human  birth. 
The  whole  may  be  rendered  thus.     "  The  Lord  possessed 

example  in  the  sacred  writings.  The  later  Greek  poetry  thus 
represents  moral  and  intellectual  qualities  as  persons ;  but  no 
where  in  the  Old  Testament  do  we  find  the  divine  attributes 
of  Justice,  Mercy,  Goodness,  Wisdom,  (unless  this  is  an 
example,)  thus  set  forth  as  personally  acting,  much  less  are 
they  are  ever  presented  in  that  boldest  style  of  directly  speak- 
ing in  the  first  person. 

6th.  To  two  arguments  of  Prof  Stuart,  it  may  be  replied, 
that  the  Hebrew  verb  nij?  (rendered  he  possessed  me)  is 
strictly  a  word  of  generation.  For  proof,  see  Genesis,  iv,  1, 
Deuteronomy,  xxxii,  6,  where  it  is  synonymous  with  father, 
Psalms,  exxxix,  13,  where  the  whole  contoxt  will  allow  of  no 
other  sense,  and  the  remarkable  passage.  Genesis,  xiv,  19, 
22,  which  should  be  rendered  the  "  Generator  of  the  Heavens 
and  the  Earth,"  in  accordance  with  the  idea  on  which  we  have 
so  much  insisted,  that  in  the  ancient  mind  creation  is  regarded 
as  a  birth  or  getiesis  from  a  previous  state.  Besides,  the 
«'reatiou  of  an  attribute  is  utterly  unmeaning.  To  the  other 
objection  of  Prof.  Stuart,  that  the  Hebrew  word  inVVih 
(rendered  brought  forth,  Proverbs,  viii,  23,)  is  used  alone 
in  respect  to  the  female  or  maternal  nature,  it  may  be  replied 
by  citing  such  passages  as  Psalms,  xxix,  9,  xc,  2,  and  others. 
Another  answer  is  furnished  by  the  fact  that  the  same  objec- 
tion, if  it  have  any  weight  at  all,  is  applicable  to  the  Greek 
-TT^wToToxog  as  used  by  Paul,  and  applied  to  the  Logos,  Colos- 
sians,  i,  18.  The  root  of  that  term  is  almost  universally 
employed  in  the  same  way.  But  the  conclusive  reply  is  that 
the  whole  objection  is  addressed  to  a  weak,  human  prejudice, 
and  has  no  force  in  respect  to  the  mysterious  idea  of  the 
divine  sonship.  It  would  have  been  just  as  well  to  have 
derived  an  argument  from  the  grammatical  feminine  form  of 
the  Greek  and  Hebrew  words  for  wisdom. 


VIII.  319 

me  as  his  own,  or  only  Begotten,  the  Beginning  of  his 
ways,  before  liis  works  of  old.  From  eternity  was  I 
anointed,  away  before  the  beginning — the  beginning  of 
the  antiquities  of  the  earth.  When  there  were  no  chaoses 
was  I  born,  before  there  were  any  deeps  swelling  with 
waters, — before  the  mountains  were  settled — before  the 
hills  was  I  horn.  When  he  had  not  made  the  earth,  or 
the  parts  beyond,  or  the  very  beginning  of  the  dust  of 
the  world.  When  he  prepared  the  heavens  I  was  there ; 
when  he  established  the  skies  above,  when  he  made 
strong  the  fountains  of  the  deep,  when  he  made  a  law 
for  the  sea,  even  when  he  ordained  the  supports  of  the 
earth.  I  was  ever  with  him  like  an  only  child, —  day 
—  day — was  I  his  dehght,  rejoicing  ever  before  Him. 
Glad  was  I  in  the  orb  of  his  earth,  but  my  great  joy  was 
with  the  Sons  of  Adam." 

"  In  the  beginning  of  his  ways,"  says  our  version,  but 
there  is  no  preposition  here,  as  there  is  when  the  same  word 
is  used,  Genesis,  i,  1,  nor  any  demand  of  the  sense  to 
supply  it.  Wisdom  was  the  beginning  itself,  the  First 
Out-going,  the  Eternally  Born,  the  Beginning  of  his 
ways,  the  Beginning  which  had  no  other  beginning,  the 
'^■^X^  Twy  o.^x^)\,  or  Principium  principiorum.  In  verse 
80th,  we  have  rendered  the  Hebrew  V'on  according  to  the 
spirit  of  our  translation;  the  word  denoting  nurture  and 
thus  sonship.  This  agrees  well,  too,  with  the  general  scope 
of  the  passage.  And  yet  the  arguments  are  strong  in 
favor  of  another  rendering  given  in  all  the  old  versions. 
The  Septuagint  translation  is  a^fxo^outfa,  making  harmo" 
nious,  the  Vulgate,  cuncta  componens.  The  Syriac  has 
a  word  that  means  arranger  or  artificer  ;  being  the  par- 
ticiple of  the  verb  which  the  Peschito  employs  in  trans- 


820  INTERPRETATION   OF   PROVERBS,    VIII. 

lating,  Hebrews,  xi,  3,  where  our  version  rightlj  renders 
it,  "  the  worlds  were  framed.'''' 

But  before  making  particular  remarks  on  the  transla- 
tion of  single  terms,  it  maj  be  well  to  call  attention  to 
what  is  strongly  conceived  to  be  the  governing  soul  of 
the  whole  passage.  We  do  not  look  here  for  scientific 
accuracy.  The  conceptions  are  very  much  the  same  as 
in  the  Mosaic  account,  and  we  could  expect  no  other 
than  such  as  might  belong  to  a  thoughtful  Hebrew  mind 
in  the  days  of  Solomon.  The  First  of  Genesis  seems  to 
have  been  vividly  in  the  writer's  mind,  although  there  is 
not  preserved  the  same  orderly  method  that  there  makes 
the  principal  feature.  The  design  vfas  different;  and 
the  evidence  of  this  gives  rise  to  a  feehng  of  a  pecuhar 
kind  that  does  not  so  much  affect  us  in  that  more  metho- 
dical narrative.  This  design  here  is  to  set  forth  exceed- 
ing antiquity,  even  the  eternity  of  the  Logos.  The 
writer  might,  perhaps,  have  expressed  this  at  once,  in  a 
single  proposition  conveyed  in  abstract  terms,  had  the 
Hebrew  furnished  him  with  any  such.  He  chooses, 
however,  to  take  a  more  effective  method  by  employing 
vivid  conceptions,  which  although  ever  seeming  to  termi- 
nate-in the  finite,  do,  in  fact,  carry  us  farther  towards 
or  into  the  infinite  than  any  such  word  as  infinite  itself, 
or  any  abstract  terms,  however  logically  perfect,  could 
ever  have  done.  We  ascend  continually  and  rapidly  by 
a  series  of  the  most  sublime  climaxes,  until  our  idea  of 
what  is  still  above  is  unutterably  exalted  by  the  concep- 
tion of  the  immeasurable  times  and  spaces  we  have  left 
below.  We  are  carried  back,  and  still  farther  back, — 
away  to  the  ante-adamic  state, — away  back  to  the  crea- 
tive period,  and  into  the  creative  period.     And  when  we 


EXPRESSION   OF  IMMENSE  ANTIQUITY.  321 

are  there,  there  is  the  same  going  back,  and  farther  back, 
as  we  continually  recede  from  stage  to  stage,  and  from 
period  to  period,  until  the  mind  is  lost  in  the  thought  of 
that  \yhollj  ante-mundane  state  when  Wisdom  was  alone 
with  God, —  the  First  Born  before  all  creation.  Before, 
the  beginning  of  the  antiquities  of  the  earth,  yni^  •'^atpto, 
the  periods  that  preceded  the  finishing  of  the  earth,  before 
the  mountains  were  settled,  before  even  the  hills  or  first 
swelhng  mounds  began  to  be  raised  on  the  terrestrial 
surface, —  when  there  was  no  sea,  no  sky,  no  chaoses, 
no  deeps, —  was  I  born.  And  now  we  ascend  or  recede 
into  a  region  still  more  immensely  remote, — "  When  he 
had  not  made  the  earth"  at  all,  or  the  "  spaces  abroad 
beyond  the  earth,"  or  the  very  "  beginning  of  the  dust 
(or  elementary  matter)  of  the  world."  We  are  carried 
far  beyond  the  tune  even  when  the  earth  was  Tohu  and 
Bohu,  and  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  waters. 

But  we  must  justify  our  translation  here.  With  all 
respeet  for  our  common  version,  it  may  be  said  that  it 
has  failed  in  this  verse.  Its  rendering  is,  "  The  earth 
and  the  fields  and  the  highest  part  of  the  dust  of  the 
world."  It  is  not  so  much  inaccurate  as  wanting  in  dis- 
tinctness. Some  have  thought  that  the  last  expression 
referred  to  the  hills,  or  mountain  tops,  as  the  higliest 
part  of  the  globe ;  but  that  would  be  a  repetition  and  an 
inversion,  moreover,  of  the  order  elsewhere  observed, 
which  is  from  the  superficial,  or  obvious,  to  the  more 
remote,  or  what  is  supposed  to  be  the  more  remote,  in 
time  or  causation.  It  would,  too,  wholly  destroy  the 
climax.  The  earth,  and  the  fields,  and  the  hills, —  this 
cannot  be  the  true  order  of  the  conception.  The  word 
her«  rendered  fields^  has  no  where  else  any  such  appli- 


322  HEBREW  WORD  FOR  WORLD. 

cation.  It  is  from  a  very  common  root  signifying  without 
or  ahroad,  (for as,')  or  that  which  is  without.  No  other 
Hebrew  word  could  have  supplied  its  place  in  expressing 
such  an  idea  of  parts  or  places  beyond  the  earth.  It 
may  mean  here  the  air,  but  still  the  order  requires  that 
it  be  something  off  the  earth,  beyond  the  earth,  or,  at 
least,  of  a  more  elemental  nature  than  the  common 
matter  of  the  earth  in  its  present  state.  The  word  "San 
(teheV)  we  have  shown  in  a  previous  chapter  (page  53) 
to  be  of  a  wider  significance  than  earth ;  although  it  is 
sometimes  used  for  it,  or  even  for  the  habitable  part  of 
it;  just  as  we  also  sometimes  employ  our  word  world 
in  a  similar  limited  sense.  It  is  the  kosmos,  or  visible 
mundane  sphere,  or  "  all  under  the  heaven."  It  is  the 
round  world,  corresponding  to  the  Latin  tellus  rather 
than  terra,  and  having  the  same  radical  conception  with 
our  Saxon  word  ivorld,  from  whiy^l,  whorl,  or  roll*  The 
word  ttJNS,  rendered  highest,  is  not  used  of  altitude. 
When  taken  trojDically,  it  is  a  word  of  time,  order,  or 
origin,  but  not  of  space.  Its  primary  sense,  the  head, 
may  be  employed,  as  in  other  languages,  for  beginning 
or  principium,  and  with  this  meaning  it  is  the  root  of  the 
first  word  in  Genesis.  It  is  thus,  as  expressive  of  order 
rather  than  of  space,  the  very  term,  of  all  others,  a  think- 
ing philosophic  Hebrew  would  have  been  led  to  employ, 
had  he  wished  to  express  what  the  Greeks  in  their  philo- 
sophy would  style  an  a^p^^^j,  and  the  Latins  a  principium 
or  first  principle  of  things.     The  word  Mi^is^,  too,  or 

*The  same  conception  is  expressed  in  Hebrew  by  V^^a,  a 
wheel ;  as  in  Psalms,  Ixxvii,  19,  "The  voice  of  thy  thunder 
is  in  galgal  (the  arch  or  vault  of  heaven),  thy  lightnings  lit 
up  the  tehel,  the  earth  stood  in  awe  and  trembled." 


THE  GREAT  ANTIQUITY  OF  -WISDOM.  323 

dust,  is  remarkable  for  being  the  very  one  which  modem 
science  has  applied  to  its  nebular  elementary  matter.  It 
calls  it  sta?'  dust.  We  would  not  insist  upon  any  such 
mere  coincidence  as  that ;  but  there  are  some  other 
things  about  the  word  which  are  well  worth  our  atten- 
tion. The  plural  form  which  is  quite  unusual,*  seems 
taken  here  to  separate  it  from  its  common  applications. 
In  this  way  it  becomes  of  all  other  Hebrew  words,  the 
best  adapted  to  present  the  thought  of  the  first  or  most 
elementary  matter — "  the  beginning  of  the  dust  of  the 
world.'' 

And  now  to  think  of  measuring  all  this  by  six  solar 
days  of  twenty-four  hours !  Could  the  writer  have  had 
it  in  his  mind  ?  There  is,  indeed,  grandeur  in  the  thought 
of  sudden  and  rapid  exercises  of  supernatural  power ; 
but  is  it  the  kind  of  grandeur  which  the  passage  aims  to 
express  ?  We  are  speaking  now  merely  of  its  rhetorical 
effect,  its  leading  thought,  its  designed  impression.  This 
is  not  rapidity,  nor  striking  display,  nor  great  strength 
even,  but  antiquity.  The  writer  is  striving  to  make  us 
feel  how  old,  how  very  old,  this  uncreated  Wisdom  is.  He 
is  taxing  his  utmost  powers  of  language  to  show  how 
inconceivably  ancient,  beyond  all  finite  measures,  beyond 
all  finite  visible  things,  was  the  birth  of  the  Logos,  the 
Beginning  of  the  ways  of  God.  Let  us  endeavor  then, 
as  far  as  possible,  to  receive  into  our  minds  this  concep- 
tion of  vast  antiquities,  of  antiquities  going  back  of  anti- 
quities, not  only  to  the  preadamite  period,  but  away  into 
it — stage  after  stage — period  after  period — beyond  the 

*  We  think  there  is  but  one  other  example  of  the  plural  in 
the  Scriptures,^  and  that  is  Job,  xxviii,  6,  where  it  is  apphed 
in  a  like  chemical  or  elementary  manner  to  the  metallic  ore. 


321  HOW  FAR  BACK   IT  CARRIES   US  ! 

antiquities  of  the  present  earth — beyond  the  running 
streams — beyond  the  swelhng  mountains  and  even  the 
first  rising  hills  —  beyond  the  dark  world  of  waters — - 
beyond  the  time  when  light  first  shone  upon  it — before 
the  Spirit  brooded  over  the  abyss  —  before  the  chaos  — 
before  the  material  principium  —  before  the  very  begin- 
ning of  "  the  dust  of  the  world,"  the  very  hyle  or  ele- 
mental matter  of  the  round  universe.  Can  it  be  that  the 
writer  really  had  in  his  minds  eye  a  view  which  hmited 
all  this  to  a  few  centuries  before  his  own  birth,  and  what 
is  still  more  inconceivable,  confined  by  far  the  greater  and 
the  grander  part  of  these  continually  expanding  antiqui- 
ties to  the  space  of  six  solar  days  ?  Is  it  at  all  consis- 
tent with  such  an  intended  impression  of  antiquity,  that 
while  the  briefest  and  least  important  part  of  this  imagery 
should  carry  us  back  three  thousand  years  to  the  crea- 
tion of  man,*  all  the  rest,  so  labored  and  so  expanded, 

*  If  it  be  said  that  these  three  thousand  years,  or  therea* 
bouts,  would  seem  like  a  great  antiquity  to  the  writer,  because 
it  came  to  his  mind  through  a  chronological  waste,  the  answer 
is  easy.  The  Jewish  chronology  was  no  such  waste.  Every 
step  in  the  road,  almost,  was  marked  out.  There  were  mile 
stones  all  the  way  up.  The  Jew  acquainted  with  his  Scrip- 
tures, was  as  familiar  with  its  remotest  terminus  as  with  the 
parts  nearest  to  himself.  In  thought,  in  conception,  he  was 
as  near  to  Jacob,  Isaac,  and  Abraham,  as  we  are  to  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers.  No  people  ever  surpassed  the  Israelites  in  the 
regularity  of  their  chronology.  Whether  the  measurement 
were  real  or  fictitious  (and  with  respect  to  the  conception  this 
makes  no  difference)  the  whole  duration  from  Solomon  to 
Adam  is  filled  up  with  dates  and  events  presenting  an  almost 
unbroken  series.  There  is  nothing  else  like  it  in  the  ancient 
world.  If  it  be  true,  then,  that  conceptions  of  time  are  ren- 
dered more  familiar  by  such  filling  up,  especially  if  it  be  with 
genealogies  of  our  own  near  kindred,  then  to  Solomon  the 
thirty  centuries  to  the  creation,  as  so  regularly  given  in  his 


wisdom's  great  joy  with  the  sons  of  men.  325 

should  take  us  no  farther  back  of  that  than  six  times 
twentj-four  hours  ?  We  say  nothing  of  the  entire  silence 
respecting  the  short  solar  days,  which  would  certainly  be 
very  remarkable  if  the  writer  had  believed  in  them,  or 
had  them  in  his  mind,  but  we  ask  again, — Would  not  the 
very  supposition  cause  the  whole  animated  passage  to 
collapse  and  empty  itself  of  all  that  power  which  the 
dullest  reader  must  feel  that  it  possesses. 

What  shows,  too,  that  the  writer's  mind  is  on  these  old 
pre-adamite  periods  is  the  language  of  the  subsequent 
verses.  During  these  successive  stages.  Wisdom,  or  the 
Logos,  was  ivith*  God,  delighting  in  them  all.  "  I  was 
His  delight,  day^  day,  (cai'^  trai^)  rejoicing  always  before 
Him, — rejoicing  in  the  tebeV  (the  mundus  or  orbis  ter- 
raru'Ufi),  rejoicing  in  the  grand  series  of  constructions 
through  which  the  Earth  and  Heavens  were  finished,  but 
with  the  greatest  joy — expressed  by  an  intensive  plural 
— when  the  long  periods  of  creation  were  terminating  at 
last  in  the  human  race.  "  My  exceeding  great  joy  was 
with  the  Sons  of  Men."     If  our  first  view  be  correct, 

Sacred  Books,  must  have  appeared  much  shorter  than  to  us 
the  conceived  interval  that  carries  us  back  to  the  growth  of 
the  Roman  Empire.  The  correctness  of  these  dates  cannot 
affect  our  philological  argument,  which  has  only  to  do  with  the 
time-conceptions  of  the  writer,  and  the  question  whether  they 
would  be  in  harmony  with  that  idea  of  the  vast  antiquity  of 
the  Logos  which  he  is  laboring  to  give  us  through  so  many 
swelling  climaxes.  Did  he  mean  to  go  back  only  three  thou- 
sand years  and  six  days,  making  one  transition  through  the ' 
first  interval,  and  then  employing  all  this  hyperbolical  lan- 
guage to  carry  us  through  the  second  ?  The  whole  spirit  of 
the  passage  rebels  against  the  thought. 

*  Hebrew  "iVsN.  Compare  John,  i,  1,  crfog  <rov  ©sov — The 
Word  was  with  (jod. 

28 


326  MIOAH,   V,   1 


what  a  deep  significance  is  given  to  these  expressions  by 
the  fact  that  the  Logos,  whose  antiquity  is  here  set  forth, 
afterwards  "  became  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,"  assum- 
ing our  nature,  being  born  as  we  are  born,  taking  upon 
himself  our  very  name  Son  of  Man,  and  thus  making 
himself  the  Goel,  the  near  kinsman,  the  Redeemer  of 
those  whom  he  had  so  "loved  before  the  foundations  of 
the  world." 

In  immediate  connection  with  this  we  would  cite  the 
well  known  passage  from  the  Prophet  Micah,  v,  1,  which 
all  Christians  must  of  course  regard  as  spoken  of  the 
Logos,  or  Son  of  God.  "  And  thou,  Bethlehem  Ephra- 
tah,  though  thou  art  little  among  the  thousands  of  Judah, 
from  thee  shall  come  forth  to  me  He  who  is  to  be  ruler 
in  Israel,  whose  outgoings  are  of  old^from  everlasting^ 
AU  who  hold  that  the  passage  in  Proverbs,  viii,  refers 
to  the  Logos,  will  see  a  striking  connection,  and  must 
believe  that  here  are  the  same  goings  forth  from  eternity 
which  are  there  more  largely  pictured.  Yet,  even  aside 
from  that,  there  may  be  claimed  for  this  passage  a  bear- 
ing upon  our  main  subject  in  consequence  of  its  peculiar 
phraseology.  What  are  these  riiNi:i>3,  or  out-goings?  No 
other  part  of  the  Bible  furnishes  the  answer  but  Genesis,  i. 
They  must  be  the  same  goings  forth,  or  utterances,  of 
the  creative  Word  that  are  there  so  repeatedly  recorded. 
And  then  comes  another  remarkable  phrase  whose  pecu- 
liarity is  hidden  in  our  correct  though  too  general  trans- 
lation— "  Whose  out-goings  are  from  the  antiquity  (from 
the  ante-mundane  state)  from  the  days  of  eternity,"  or 
"days  of  olam" — tz3^^y  i^/to.  The  author  would  be 
caj-eful  here,  but  the  question  comes  up  most  naturally 
to  the  mind, — Is  there  an  allusion  in  this  place,  as  there 


PSALMS,  cx,  3.  327 

may  have  been  in  the  yom  yom  of  Proverbs,  viii,  to  these 
same  ante-adamic  days  ?  We  know  that  the  phrase  may 
denote,  by  way  of  hyperbole,  an  ancient  time  upon  the 
earth,  and  we  have  elsewhere  treated  specially  of  such 
applications,  but  ui  the  few  cases  where  that  usage  occurs 
the  context  makes  clear  the  limited  sense.  Here,  how- 
ever, the  reason  for  such  explanation  Avould  be  directly 
reversed.  What  is  there  here  to  forbid,  what  on  the 
other  hand  is  there  whixjh  does  not  demand,  that  it  should 
have  the  fullest  sense  to  Avhich  the  human  power  of  con- 
ception can  carry  it — ''  the  days  of  olam,"  the  days 
which  are  spoken  of  as  being  before  earthly  solar  days 
began  ? 

We  may  venture  to  add  to  these  the  remarkable  pass- 
age. Psalms,  cx,  3,  which  is  commonly  rendered,  "From 
the  womb  of  the  morning  thou  hast  the  dew  of  thy  youth." 
About  the  Messianic  character  of  this  Psalm  there  can 
be  no  doubt-  It  is  fixed  by  Christ  himself,  and  is  clearly 
applied  by  him  (Matthew,  xxii,  42,  45,)  to  that  myste- 
rious pre-existence  which  made  him  the  "  Lord  as  well 
as  the  son  of  David."  We  may  regard  it,  therefore,  as 
treating  of  the  same  Eternal  One  whose  ancient  outgoings 
are  mentioned  in  Micah,  v,  1,  and  Proverbs,  viii,  24. 
What  more  likely  then,  than  that  here,  too,  there  should 
be  a  reference  to  the  Eternal  Generation,  with  a  like  allu- 
sion to  the  creative  days,  and  especially  the  first  morning 
of  our  world  as  a  term  of  exceeding  antiquity,  or  the 
remotest  date  of  the  mundane  existence.  In  the  word 
ai-i-^'o,  the  preposition  has  with  good  reason  been  regarded 
as  comparative,  but  it  may  have  this  sense  in  reference 
to  time^  rather  than  to  number,  or  abundance,  as  some 
would  take  it.     It  may,  therefore,  be  rendered  "  From 


328      MORNING   OF   THE   NATIVITY    OF   THE   LOGOS 

the  womb,"  that  is,  "  before  the  womb  of  the  morning, 
thou  hast  the  dew  of  thy  youth,"  or  thy  nativity.  The 
word  rendered  morning  denotes  in  its  most  usual  form, 
the  earliest  dawn,  tempus  ante  auroram,  primum  dilucu- 
lum  (^G-esenius') ,  the  first  beams  of  light.  The  reader  is 
referred  to  Amos,  iv,  3,  Job,  xxxviii,  12,  Genesis,  xix, 
15,  Psalms,  Ivii,  9,  Hosea,  vi,  3,  etc.  Hence  it  comes 
to  be  used  for  any  earliest  date  or  period  of  time.  The 
root  "nh'i;,  has  also  that  same  radical  idea  of  fissure^  of 
cleaving^  parting^  breaking  forth,  which  we  found  in  the 
corresponding  word  in  Genesis,  and  in  Chapter  cxiii  of 
the  Koran,  and  which,  in  fact,  belongs  to  all  the  She- 
mitic  words  of  this  class.  We  might,  therefore,  without 
any  violence,  paraphrase  it,  "Before  the  birth  oi  ndiiuvQ 
thou  hadst  thy  generation ;  before  the  first  morning  of 
the  world  thou  hadst  the  early  dew*  of  thy  nativity."    It 

*  Hebrew  V^.     To  make  this  word  represent  numerousness, 
the  allusion  is  supposed  to  be  to  the  drops  of  the  dew — 

The  numerous  drops  of  morning  dew — 

as  Watt's  has  paraphrazed  it  But  it  is  itself  a  term  of  gene- 
ration. The  idea  of  abundance,  in  all  the  examples  quoted 
by  Gesenius,  it  has,  not  from  the  image  of  innumerable  dew 
drops,  but  from  its  own  innate  sense  of  fertility.  It  is  closely 
connected  with  the  conception  of  germination.  Hence  the 
very  peculiar  expression,  Isaiah,  xxvi,  19,  "  the  dew  of  herbs," 
in  that  remarkable  reference  to  the  resurrection,  when,  accord- 
ing to  Paul's  image,  the  bodies  that  have  been  sown  in  the 
earth  shall  live  and  rise  again.  The  Vulgate  there  renders  it 
ros  lucis,  the  dew  of  light,  as  though  the  translator  took  niiN 
for  the  feminine  plural  of  the  word  for  light.  And,  indeed, 
there  is  an  intimate  connection  between  the  ideas,  making  it 
something  higher  and  truer  than  a  fancy,  that  the  Hebrews 
called  the  flowers  and  plants  by  this  name  of  lights,  when 
they  are  first  seen  coming  out  of  the  earth.  There  is  cer- 
tainly a  relationship  between  the  ideas  of  light  and  germina- 
tion, or  the  outgrowth  of  life,  whether  vegetable  or  animal, 


BEFORE  THE  FIRST  M0RNIJ5G   OF  NATURE.        329 

is  the  same  attempt  to  draw  the  mind  to  the  idea  of  the 
absolute  eternal  through  the  necessary  medium  of  a  finite 
conception.  But  this  finite  conception  must  be  as  incon- 
ceivably remote  as  possible,  and  not  lose  its  effect  by 
carrying  back  the  thought  to  events  which  are  parted 
by  only  a  few  historical  human  generations  from  the  stand 
point  of  both  the  writer  and  the  reader.  We  think  of 
the  d-ira.-jya(f^a,  the  eternal  ray,  or  outshining  beam,  as 
Paul  calls  the  Logos,  Hebrews,  i,  3,  and  when  it  is  said 
that  this  was  before  the  birth  of  the  world's  first  morning, 
or  the  first  outshining  of  the  natural  light,  it  does  not, 
indeed,  make  this  latter  date  eternal,  but  still,  if  there 
would  be  any  force  in  the  comparison,  must  it  draw  it 
back  to  a  distance  towards  itself  which  no  known  solar 
or  cosmical  times  can  measure.  In  what  striking  har- 
mony with  this  the  declaration  that  follows:  —  "Thou 
art  a  priest  for  ever  after  the  order  of  Melchizedek,'' 

when  the  new  existence  awakes  and  comes  forth  from  the 
darkness  and  privation  of  nature.  It  is  this  connection  of 
ideas  that  has  ever  made  the  germination  of  plants  a  favorite 
image  of  the  resurrection,  as  in  Job,  xiv,  7,  1  Corinthians, 
XV,  87.  So  the  root  h^i:,  which  in  Hebrew  has  the  sense  of 
budding,  hranching,  in  Syriac  means  to  shi7ie  forth,  or  emit 
a  splendor  ;  and  hence  the  Syriac  noun  by  which  the  Peschito 
translates  the  beam,  or  outshining,  or  "brightness  of  glory." 
Hebrews,  i,  3. 

It  need  only  be  further  remarked  that  in  the  Syriac  the 
word  for  child  is  cognate  with  this  same  root  rendered  deiv, 
and  hence  the  rendering  of  the  Syriac  translation  of  Psalms, 
ex,  3, — "  As  a  child  have  I  begotten  thee."  From  the  same 
root  comes  a  Hebrew  word  for  lamb ;  and  this  need  not  sur- 
prise us  when  we  find  the  same  analogy  in  the  Greek. — 
'Es^(r>i  is  used  for  the  young  of  animals.  Odyssy,  ix,  222. 
Hence  it  is  wrong  to  say  that  the  ancient  versions  did  not 
render  this  word  for  dew.  It  was  understood  in  their  words 
of  generation. 

28* 


330     ANCIENT  VERSIONS  OF  THE  PASSAGE, 

a  priest  of  olam — of  an  age  or  existence  not  measured 
by  the  sun.  And  hence  we  see  the  force  of  the  Apos- 
tle's distinction  between  the  regularly  genealogized  office 
of  the  sons  of  Aaron,  with  all  its  dates  and  successions, 
and  this  priesthood  which  ^' had  neither  beginning  of 
days  nor  end  of  time."     Hebrews,  vii,  4. 

The  word  youth,  in  Psalms,  ex,  3,  has  been  regarded 
as  the  abstract  used  for  the  concrete — juventus  for 
juvenes  —  and  understood  of  a  numerous  posterity,  or  the 
populousness  of  Messiah's  kingdom.  Nothing,  however, 
would  justify  this  but  an  exigency  which  does  not  here 
exist,  because  the  other  sense  is  so  satisfying.  The 
word  properly  means  hirth,  or  nativity,  rather  than 
youth,  either  as  juvenis  or  juventus,  and  this  is  its  sense, 
Ecclesiastes,  xi,  9,  10,  where  it  occurs  in  a  somewhat 
remarkable  connection  with  a  derivative  from  the  very 
word  here  joined  with  it — "  even  the  Urth  and  earliest 
dawn  of  human  life  are  vanity."  The  Syriac  translator, 
by  taking  this  word  as  a  verb,  has  brought  out  the  ren- 
dering—  "As  a  child  have  I  begotten  thee"  —  thus 
giving  it  a  striking  resemblance  to  Psalms,  ii,  7.  The 
Septuagint  version  is,  "  Before  the  morning  star  have  I 
begotten  thee,"  —  'f^o  IwCipo^ou,  the  light  that  brings  or 
foreruns  the  dawn.  The  Vulgate  gives  the  same  — 
Ex  utero  ante  luciferum  genui  te."  All  these  old  ver- 
sions regarded  the  word  rendered  morning  as  equivalent 
to  ->h?J-i=J»  used  Isaiah,  xiv,  12,  and  rendered  ^Zms  auro- 
rae,  Son  of  the  Morning.  And  here  we  cannot  help 
remarking  how  beautifully  one  Scripture  is  fomid  to  har 
monize  with  another.  We  have  not  seen  it  alluded  to 
by  any  commentator,  but  can  there  be  a  doubt  that  St. 
John,  in  Revelations,  xxii,  17,  or  the  Sacred  Person  who 


TIME  AS   OPPOSED   TO   THE   OLAMIC   STATE.        831 

there  speaks  in  vision,  must  be  supposed  to  have  refer- 
ence to  this  very  passage,  and  the  idea  given  in  these  old 
versions.  "  I  am  the  Root  and  the  Offspring  of  David 
the  bright  and  the  Morning  Star."  The  first  part  has 
an  unmistakable  reference  to  Christ's  application  of  this 
Psalm  to  himself,  Mathew,  xxii,  45  ;  can  there  be  any 
doubt  as  to  the  true  suggestion  of  the  other  ? 

We  have  spoken  of  the  olamic  days  as  belonging  to  the 
ante-time  state.  The  word  may  seem  mystical  or  un- 
meaning, and,  therefore,  demands  an  explanation.  It  is 
employed,  then,  to  denote  a  period  or  periods  of  existence 
before  the  commencement  of  that  measured  duration  to 
which  we  give  the  name  of  time,  as  regulated  by  the  sun 
and  heavenly  bodies.  Periods  not  thus  measured  have 
been  styled  olamic ;  and  we  think  with  the  best  logical 
and  etymological  reasons.  The  distinction  is  so  import- 
ant that  we  would  beg  the  indulgence  of  our  readers  in 
entering  upon  a  brief  explanation  of  the  word  dVSy,  ren- 
dered so  frequently  eternity ;  and  of  which  we  have  made 
so  free  a  use  in  these  pages.  A  difference  between  the 
thought  conveyed  by  this  word,  and  the  common  idea  of 
time,  seems  certainly  recognized  in  the  Bible.  But  what 
is  that  difference  ?  In  examining  it  we  would  say,  in 
the  first  place,  there  is  the  transcendental  notion,  which 
attempts  wholly  to  exclude  the  thought  of  duration,  and 
to  maintain  the  reality  of  a  state  of  being  in  which  it  has 
no  place.  Some  would  regard  this  as  the  anti-thesis  of 
time.  But  in  reference  to  such  notion,  all  that  we  can  say 
is,  let  the  metaphysician,  who  thinks  he  clearly  holds  it, 
make  the  most  of  it.  There  may  be  a  reality  represented 
by  it ;  but  it  does  not  fall  within  the  human  conceiving 
faculty.     We  may  try  ever  so  hard  to  realize  it,  but  we 


832  THE   METAPHYSICAL  IDEA. 

find  a  law  in  our  minds  which  makes  it  absolutely  impos- 
sible for  us  to  think  away  from  the  conception  of  dura- 
tion, or  of  time  in  its  flowing  sense. 

But  yet  we  do  speak  of  time  as  opposed  to  eternity. 
We  speak  of  its  having  a  beginning,  and  of  its  coming  to 
an  end.  There  seems,  too,  in  our  minds,  a  solid  ground 
for  the  thought.  There  are,  moreover,  passages  of  Scrip- 
ture which  speak  of  the  present  world  under  a  Hebrew 
name  that  implies  a  contrast  between  the  two  states  of 
being.  They  speak  of  the  solar  and  celestial  phenomena 
as  in  some  way  beginning  the  creation  of  time,  or  of  time 
regarded  as  a  state  succeeding  another  and  a  previous 
state.  Hence,  too,  the  repeated  phrases,  heneath  the 
sun,  and  to  see  the  sun,  as  indicative  of  our  present  mun- 
dane being.  In  what,  then,  does  this  difference  consist  ? 
There  may  be  an  absolute  olam  without  flow  or  flowing 
duration.  But  that  is  only  for  the  Divine  Mind.  It  is 
'to  us  inconceivable  and  ineffable.  As  far,  therefore,  as 
our  conceptions  are  concerned,  the  difference  —  and  it 
is  a  very  wide  one — must  be  this,  that  the  one  is  mea- 
sured by  astronomical  or  cosmical  signs,  the  other  is 
unmeasured  by  any  estimated  interior  divisions,  although 
it  may  bear  a  quantitative  relation  to  similar  cosmical 
periods  lying  ivithout  it.  In  presenting  this  distinction 
the  radical  sense  of  the  word  leads  us  directly  to  the 
idea  of  which  we  are  in  search.  The  verb  means  to  be 
hidden^  and  the  derived  noun  in  its  primary  sense  signi- 
fies the  concealed,  the  indefinite,  the  unknown,  the 
boundless, — not  so  much  that  which  cannot  be  measured 
or  bounded,  as  that  which,  as  matter  of  observed  fact,  is 
unbounded,  and  in  this  sense  boundless.  Among  the 
places  in  which  the  root  occurs  we  will  cite  one  that 


ETYMOLOGY   OP   OLAM.  833 

seems  to  us  not  only  to  set  forth  the  radical  meaning, 
but  also  to  do  this  in  connection  with  a  simile  than  which 
we  know  of  none  that  could  be  regarded  as  more  vividly 
pictorial  of  this  very  diflference.  In  Job,  vi,  17,  false 
friends  are  compared  to  streams  swollen  in  the  winter  or 
cold  rainy  season,  and  dried  up  in  the  heats  of  summer 
when  most  wanted  by  the  thirsty  traveller.  These  swol- 
len floods  of  winter,  he  says,  ''  are  dark  by  reason  of  the 
cold  when  the  snow  hides  itself  (-itth'fi;)  upon  them." 
It  is  a  conjugation  of  this  Hebrew  verb  ;  and  not  only 
the  etymology  but  the  picture  is  suggestive  of  our  pre- 
sent thought.  As  the  regular  fast  falling  flakes  of  snow 
disappear  in  the  dark  wintry  waters, 

A  moment  white,  then  gone  forever, 

so  do  our  regular  measured  times  run  into  an  unmea- 
sured ocean  of  duration,  just  as  in  the  past  they  may  be 
conceived  of  as  having  come  out  of  a  similar  dark  and 
undivided  reservoir*.  01am,  then,  is  hidden  unmea- 
sured duration.  It  is  in  contrast  with  regular  time 
divided  into  regular  periods,  solar,  lunar,  stellar,  diurnal, 
monthly,  annual,  centennial,  millenial,  all  deduced  from 
the  celestial  motions,  and  all  thus  dating  from  the  time 
when  the  sun  was  ordained  to  "  give  light  upon  the  earth, 
and  to  be  for  times,  and  for  seasons,  and  for  signs,  and 
for  days,  and  for  years."  If  we  may  use  a  very  common 
comparison,  this  arrangement  in  respect  to  the  earth  by 


*  Another  good  example  of  such  use  of  the  verb  may  be 
found,  Nahum,  iii,  11,  where  it  is  applied  in  Niphal  to  the 
long  buried  and  foro;otten  Nineveh. — ''Thou  shall  be  hiddenV 
The  primary  and  derived  senses  seem  to  meet  here  in  most 
expressive  union.  For  an  ar/e,  or  olam,  has  she  been  hidden, 
until  now  Layard  and  others  are  bringing  her  up  to  light. 


834   OUR  TIME  CONNECTED  WITH  THE  KOSMOS. 

■which  it  is  brought  under  the  dominion  of  measured  time, 
or  as  we  might  say,  the  revolution  on  its  axis  by  -which  it 
is  all  eflfected,  is  like  putting  on  the  strap  or  gearing  that 
connects  our  wheel  with  the  whole  mundane  machinery. 
Every  day  becomes  such  a  portion  of  a  year,  every  year 
of  some  great  solar  revolution,  every  such  solar  revolu- 
tion an  exact  measured  cycle  in  some  millio-millenial 
movement  about  some  other  far  distant  centre.  By  con- 
necting, moreover,  our  pendulums  with  the  earth's  rota- 
tion, and  through  this  with  the  great  outward  movement, 
we  get  the  smaller  diurnal  divisions  of  hours  and  minutes ; 
and  then,  too,  as  has  been  said  before,  our  own  micro- 
cosmal  organization  gets  in  harmony  with  it,  and  we  can 
not  think  out  of  it,  and  thus  we  become  children  of  flow- 
ing time,  or  "  men  of  Heled,"  as  the  Hebrew  has  it, 
Psalms,  xvii,  14. 

But  we  are  pretty  plainly  taught  in  the  Bible  that  such 
measured  portions  of  duration  are  preceded  by  others  of 
a  different  character,  and  to  such  we  may  give  the  name 
olamic.  They  are  on  each  side  of  our  time-measured 
world ;  and  thus  our  own  world,  too,  though  having  its 
interior  temporal  divisions,  is  itself  an  olam  as  compared 
with  the  adjacent  cycles.  It  Hes  between  them  like  an 
island,  or  an  isthmus,  between  two  unmeasured  oceans. 

In  respect,  however,  to  this  definition  of  hidden  or 
unmeasured,  the  geologist  might  perhaps  object  that  the 
ante-adamic  olams  were  actually  measured,  as  truly,  if 
not  as  regularly,  as  though  it  had  been  done  by  the 
celestial  movements.  They  were  measured  by  strata, 
he  might  affirm,  or  deposits.  But  by  what  regular  laws 
of  succession,  or  by  what  exact  intervals  determined  by 
movements  out  of  themselves,  and  which  would  remain 


RATE   OF   MOVEMENT    CHANaiNa,  835 

invariable  notwithstanding  all  their  changes  ?  We  look 
now  upon  these  deposits,  or  upon  the  marks  they  have 
left,  and  they  seem  to  imply  succession  and  passing 
times.  But  how  slow  or  how  rapid  ?  By  what  rule  is 
this  to  be  measured  —  we  mean  by  what  rule  out  of 
themselves  —  as  long  as  the  system,  or  our  earth,  is  thus 
out  of  gearing  with  the  mundane  machinery  ?  To  mea- 
sure the  movement  we  must  have  the  rate  of  movement, 
and  as  this  may  be  itself  a  changing  or  flowing  quantity, 
we  must  have  a  difierential  of  a  differential,  or  the  rate 
of  the  rate  of  movement,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum.  If  the 
Scripture,  as  we  have  shown,  does  not  press  us  down  to 
the  exact  conception  of  modern  solar  days,  so  neither,  on 
the  other  hand,  has  the  skeptical  geologist  any  inductive 
warrant  for  his  billions  and  trillions  of  years.  In  fact, 
all  our  modern  years  and  times,  as  employed  on  both 
sides,  are  entirely  out  of  the  question.  How  has  our 
man  of  science  found  out  how  fast  or  how  slow  nature 
produced  her  births  in  those  unmeasured  periods  ?  He 
has  measures  of  layers,  or  stratified  deposits  as  they  lie 
in  our  present  space,  and  he  has  nothing  to  measure 
them  with  but  our  present  divisions  of  time.  He  has  no 
measures  of  fast  or  slow  when  applied  to  changing  rates 
of  velocities  themselves.  How  then  shall  he  presume  to 
estimate  the  forces,  and  movements,  and  velocities,  of 
these  olamic  periods  by  the  same  standards  of  weights 
and  measures  we  now  find  established  in  our  settled 
nature,  and  regulated  by  our  outward  astronomical  con- 
nection with  the  whole  visible  universe  ?  Who  shall  dare 
affirm  how  long  it  took  nature  to  deposit  or  upheave  a 
continent,  or  whether  the  time  was  long  or  short  at  all, 
when  the  very  terms  of  extent  we  employ  have  no  mean- 


336        WHAT   SHALL  MEASURE  THE   STANDARDS? 

ing  away  from  our  own  visible,  tangible,  measures  of 
time  and  space  ? 

Few  persons  have  thought  much  of  the  difficulty 
involved  in  the  problem  of  making  a  true  standard  of 
weights  and  measures  for  our  own  well  settled  period. 
The  Parliamentary  and  Congressional  Reports  on  this 
subject,  made  by  our  most  scientific  men,  show  that  it 
is  among  the  most  difficult  of  all  the  practical  appli- 
cations of  science.  Some  may  say,  a  foot  is  twelve 
inches,  which  is  very  much  the  same  as  saying,  a  foot  is 
a  foot ;  but  how  do  we  know  that  what  is  now  called  a 
foot,  or  a  yard,  is  the  same  that  it  was  even  two  hundred 
years  ago.  Nature,  even  the  present  nature,  is  affect- 
ing all  our  standards.  Heat  expands  ;  cold  contracts  ; 
other  causes  may  enlarge  or  diminish  them.  But  when 
the  standards  themselves  are  changing,  what  shall  mea- 
sure the  standards  ?  And  so,  also,  it  may  be  said,  an 
hour  is  the  twenty-fourth  part  of  a  day,  or  it  is  sixty 
minutes,  and  a  minute  is  sixty  seconds ;  but  how  great 
has  been  found  to  be  the  difficulty  of  determining  that 
length  of  the  pendulum  on  which  our  artificial  measures 
of  time  depend!  It  varies  according  to  the  latitude, 
and  its  relation  to  the  earth's  equatorial  revolution.  It 
is  connected  indeed  with  the  earth  in  its  connection  with 
the  sun  and  universal  system,  so  that  we  may  correct  the 
mechanical  measurement  of  time  by  astronomical  obser- 
vations ;  but  let  this  gearing,  it  may  be  said  again,  be 
loosed  and  the  diurnal  revolution  be  actually  lost,  or  lost 
to  sight  and  conception,  and  how  immensely  more  diffi- 
cult would  this  already  difficult  problem  become!  It 
may  be  easy  to  measure  when  we  have  the  measure, 
an  1  that  a  constant  quantity.     But  when  the  very  tiling 


RASHNESS   OF   SCIENCE.  337 

needed  is  a  measure  of  our  measures,  and  all  nature  is 
flowing  and  changing,  and  we  have  no  measure  of  the 
rate  at  which  it  flows  and  changes,  much  less  of  the  rate, 
or  ratio,  at  which  the  rate  itself,  in  its  endless  difieren- 
tials,  is  ever  varying — how  unscientific,  how  unscrip- 
tural,  too,  may  we  not  say,  to  carry  back  our  days  and 
hours,  or  even  years  and  centuries,  and  make  them  the 
standards  for  those  unmeasured,  and  to  us  immeasurable 
periods,  those  unknown  olamic  days  or  "days  of  eter- 
nity." The  suggestive  language  of  Scripture  demands 
no  such  war  of  ideas ;  when  rightly  interpreted,  its  times 
are  in  harmony  with  the  importance  and  grandeur  of  the 
work. 


CHAPTER  XXYL 


THE  TRINE  ASPECT  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 

Worlds  in  space.— Worlds  in  time.— Worlds  in  degree  or  altitude.— 
Like  the  three  dimensions  in  geometry. — The  space  aspect,  the  field 
of  modern  science. — Plur-^xity  of  worlds  in  space.— Emotional  view 
of  the  greatness  of  the  universe. — Not  dependent  on  ideas  of 
numerical  quantity. — The  space  aspect  not  prominent  in  the  bible. 
— Is  the  exercise  of  creative  power  a  necessary  attribute  of  Deity? 
—Worlds  in  dbgree,  or  ascending  orders  of  being  recognized  in  the 
Scriptures.— The  epithet,  The  Lord  of  Hosts. — Greek  and  Hebrew 
idea  contrasted.— Physical  harmony.— Harmony  of  empire. 

When  we  suffer  the  idea  of  the  universe  to  unfold  itself 
in  the  mind,  the  first  thought,  perhaps,  is  that  of  im- 
mense extent  in  space.  But  this  conception  is  found  to 
be  incomplete.  Another  element  in  the  great  idea  is 
demanded.  Thus  we  are  led  to  think  of  the  world  in 
time.  A  great  time  is  conceived  of  as  corresponding  to 
great  space.  Still  the  mind  is  not  satisfied.  As  we 
have  the  three  dimensions  in  geometry,  so  there  would 
seem  to  be  demanded  three  aspects  of  the  universe,  each 
as  the  complement  of  the  others,  and  all  entering  into 
the  ideal  perfection.  Thus  there  comes  in  still  another 
conception.  It  is  that  of  degree,  of  rank,  of  a  rising 
higher  and  higher  in  the  order  of  being.  The  three 
dimensions  are  now  complete,  and  the  mind  is  satisfied. 
We  have  breadth,  we  have  length,  we  have  altitude. 
We  have  what  we  have  called  the  trine  aspect  af  the  uni- 
verse. When  the  thought  has  taken  full  possession  of 
the  mind,  we  cannot  lose  any  part  of  it  without  feeling 


SPACE,  TIME,  DEGREE.  839 

that  the  ideal  harmony  of  the  whole  has  been  impaired. 
There  is  discord,  deformity,  and  irrationahtj,  in  the  con- 
ception of  immense  worlds  in  space  having  an  almost 
infinitessimal  brevity  in  time.  It  is  the  thought  of  vast 
breadth  without  length.  There  is  the  same  discord,  the 
same  unsatisfying  incompleteness,  when  we  think  of  the 
universe  as  length  and  breadth  without  altitude.  As  we 
are  not  satisfied  to  regard  our  world  in  space  as  the  only 
space  occupied  by  rational  personalities,  so  neither  are 
we  satisfied  to  regard  our  world  in  time,  or  our  tvorld- 
time  (Welt-zeit)  as  the  only  world-time  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  similar  periods  past  or  to  come.  And  when  we 
have  come  thus  far,  equally  inharmonious  is  felt  to  be 
the  supposition  that  our  own  level  is  the  highest  altitude 
of  the  created  universe,  or  that  there  are  not  above  us 
orders  and  ranks  of  being  ascending  to  multiples  bearing 
some  ratio,  at  least,  to  the  descending  grades  which  we 
regard  as  existing  below  us.  It  is  hard  to  think  that 
the  world  ends  with  our  space,  that  it  began  with  our 
time,  or  that  its  upward  growth  is  bounded  by  what  we 
may  ever  so  boastingly  style  our  progress.  In  either  of 
these  directions,  the  conceiving  faculty  stretches  on  to 
infinity,  or  towards  infinity,  and  the  man  of  science,  in 
his  .alarm  for  the  human  dignity,  has  no  more  right  to 
limit  it  in  one  aspect,  than  he  has  to  charge  his  theolo- 
gical rival  Avith  ah  attempt  to  bound  it  in  another.  "Wo 
do  not  say  that  this  feeling  is  the  measure  of  truth,  or 
that  there  are  these  world-spaces,  these  world-times,  and 
these  world-altitudes  of  being,  because  the  mind  has  a 
tendency  thus  to  conceive  them ;  yet,  still,  we  regard  it 
as  worthy  of  consideration  in  our  mental  history,  as  we 
trace  its  efiects  in  modes  of  thinking,  and  especially  in 


3^0    SPACE  ASPECT  THE  FIELD  OF  SCIENCE. 

that  linguistic  department  whose  exploration  forms  the 
main  subject  of  the  present  volume. 

Now,  to  make  an  appHcation  of  this  general  thought, 
we  may  say  that  the  first,  or  space  aspect,  is  the  favorite 
field  of  modern  science,  although  she  has  lately  entered 
upon  the  second.  The  third  she  has,  as  yet,  almost 
wholly  ignored.  Scientific  men  have  either  said  nothing 
about  it,  or  they  have  shown  a  tendency,  at  least,  to 
make  man  the  highest  thing  in  creation  next  to  Deity, 
and  the  present  state  of  our  world-  the  measure  of  the 
universal  growth. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  first  or  space  aspect  is  far 
from  being  the  prominent  one  in  the  Scriptures.  The 
Bible  tells  us  nothing  about  suns  and  systems,  and  other 
space  worlds  like  the  one  in  which  our  own  habitation  is 
assigned.  Its  expression,  "the  heavens  and  the  earth," 
comprehends  the  universe.  By  the  former  is  meant  the 
visible  round  mundus  which  seems  to  roll  over  our  heads. 
And  yet  in  those  reduplications  of  the  term  to  which  we 
have  alluded,  and  in  such  expressions  as  we  find  Psalms, 
viii,  1,  "  the  glory  above  the  heavens^^^  there  might  seem 
to  be  an  aiming  at  an  idea  beyond ;  though  whether  this 
would  come  under  the  aspect  of  space  or  degree,  that  is, 
0^  altitude  in  supposed  upward  extent,  or  of  altitude  in 
rank  of  being,  cannot  perhaps  be  certainly  determined 
from  such  passages  alone. 

In  respect,  however,  to  this  space  aspect  of  the  worlds, 
and  the  silence  of  Scripture  about  it,  there  are  two  com- 
mon fallacies  on  which  we  would  briefly  dwell.  One  is 
that  such  aspect  comes  wholly  from  science  —  that  is 
modern  science.  To  this,  it  is  said,  we  are  indebted  for 
our  enlarged  views  of  the  universe.     Now  it  reauires  no 


PLURALITY    OF    WORLDS.  3il 

great  amount  of  learning,  or  thought,  to  show  the  false- 
hood of  such  an  assertion.  The  idea  of  the  plurality  of 
worlds  is  full  as  much  an  a  priori  as  an  a  posteriori  judg- 
ment. It  belongs  to  all  thinking  souls,  whatever  their 
amount  of  either  positive  or  hypothetical  science.  Such 
a  soul,  of  its  own  prompting,  asks  the  question,  has  not 
God  made  other  worlds  than  this,  and  made  them  to  be 
inhabited  ?  We  find  unanswerable  evidence  of  such  think- 
ing among  the  meditative  men  of  the  olden  time.  The 
idea  of  the  plurahty,  and  even  infinity,  of  worlds,  can  be 
shown  to  have  been  among  the  speculations  of  the  ear- 
liest philosophy.  It  may  have  had,  with  some,  more  of 
a  metaphysical  than  of  a  physical  aspect ;  and  yet  the 
thought,  in  its  simplest  and  most  obvious  form,  comes 
most  naturally  to  the  human  mind.  Infinite  or  vastly 
extended  space  we  long  to  fill  up  in  some  way ;  if  not 
with  worlds  like  this,  at  least  with  exhibitions  or  exercises 
of  divine  power.  Why  should  not  God  have  thus  filled 
it  ?  Why  should  he  not  thus  have  filled  one  part  of  space 
as  well  as  another  ?  If  creation  is  the  manifestation  of 
His  glory,  is  there  not  a  demand  for  the  thought,  that 
this  manifestation  must  have  been  in  spaces  and  times 
exceeding  our  own  visible  spaces,  and  our  own  computed 
times,  by  measures  to  which  no  human  arithmetic  can 
even  make  an  approach  ?  It  may,  perhaps,  be  thought 
that  there  is  a  dangerous  tendency  in  such  speculations, 
or  in  the  admission  of  such  a  law  of  thinking  as  either 
necessary  or  natural  to  the  mind.  It  tends  to  panthe- 
ism, it  might  be  said.  It  would  seem  to  involve  a 
necessity  of  creation.  But  to  this  there  is  a  prompt  and 
easy  answer.  Carry  our  thoughts  to  their  farthest  con- 
ceivable extent,  and  the  universe  is  still  finite.  We  are 
29* 


342  NO   NECESSITY   OF  CREATION. 

compelled  to  admit  a  time  when  creation  is  not,  and  spaces 
where  it  is  not.  Carry  the  objection  boldly  out  to  the 
very  conclusion  it  affects  to  dread,  and  such  conclusion 
furnishes  its  own  perfect  refutation.  If  God  must  cre- 
ate, he  must  create  everywhere.  The  exercise  of  the 
attribute  (for  such  would  this  necessity  be  on  such  a 
supposition)  must  be  coextensive  with  his  presence.  If 
it  be  said,  he  creates  everywhere  through  infinite  space, 
but  with  intervals  of  space  between,  then  we  reply,  the 
same  supposed  necessity  which  would  regard  him  as 
creating  at  measurable  intervals  of  extent  through  all  or 
infinite  space,  lest  any  measurable  portion  should  be  left 
wholly  vacant,  would  also,  for  the  same  reason,  require 
a  creation  in  shorter  and  still  shorter  intervals  of  space, 
until  all  was  filled  with  the  exercise  of  this  ubiquitous 
attribute.  There  could  be  no  vacuum  anywhere.  And 
so  in  respect  to  time  and  degree.  The  idea  that  the 
universe  is  finite  in  one  aspect,  is  no  more  difficult  than 
the  idea  of  its  being  finite  in  the  other.  A  secluded 
finite  portion  taken  out  of  infinity,  leaving  all  the  rest  of 
infinite  space  unoccupied,  may  be  conceived,  and  believed 
in,  as  well  as  finite  portions  spread  through  infinity  with 
vast  and  even  immeasurable  intervals  between  them ;  for 
it  is  a  fact  which  could  be  mathematically  proved,  that  in 
the  present  scheme  of  the  universe,  as  it  presents  itself 
to  our  natural  or  telescopic  eye,  the  occupied  spaces  run 
down  to  infinitessimals,  almost,  w^hen  compared  with  the 
unoccupied.  If  it  be  said  that  even  here,  in  these  appa- 
rent vacua,  God  has  been  creating,  though  in  a  less 
degree,  and  that  this  may  be  supposed  to  consist  in  the 
powers  of  attraction  and  magnetism  energizing  through 
those  otherwise  empty  spaces,  thus  being  present  in  them 


tJNIVERSAL  PLENUM  IN  TIME  AND   SPACE.        343 

as  a  sort  of  entity,  and,  in  this  manner,  making  sl  plenum 
or  an  infinity  full  of  power,  although  of  the  lowest  degree, 
then  the  answer  comes  irresistibly  from  the  other  or 
third  aspect  of  the  universe.  The  idea  of  creative 
necessity  can  admit  no  limit  in  any  direction,  or  in  one 
direction  more  than  in  another.  It  could  leave  no  space 
unoccupied,  no  time  unemployed,  no  degree  not  filled  up 
to  the  highest  capacity  or  rank  of  being.  If  Deity  can, 
at  his  will,  and  according  to  the  good  pleasure  of  his 
will,  intermit  in  one  place,  he  can  in  another ;  he  can  in 
all  places.  If  he  may  leave  intervals,  or  intervening 
spaces,  he  may  leave  outside  spaces.  If  he  can  intermit 
at  one  time,  he  can  intermit  at  another, — if  at  one  time 
in  one  place,  then  at  another  time  in  another  place,  and 
at  another  time  in  all  places.  If  this  can  be  so,  and  we 
know  as  fact  it  is  so,  then  the  argument  which  would 
make  creation,  in  any  sense,  a  necessary  work,  or  a 
necessary  attribute  of  the  Deity,  utterly  fails.  If  an 
attribute  at  all,  its  exercise  must  depend  on  His  own 
rational  will.  Thus  safely  held,  we  may  go  as  far  with 
the  idea  as  we  please.  We  may  imagine  no  time,  or 
rather  we  may  shut  out  from  our  imagination  all  time, 
when  God  was  not  somewhere  creating.  There  is  no 
pantheistic  danger  in  the  thought,  even  of  an  eternal 
exercise  of  such  divine  power,  if  we  suppose  it  to  be 
exercised  simply  according  to  the  divine  volition, —  God 
seeing  it  to  be  right  and  rational,  and  therefore  eternally 
willing  it, —  or,  if  creating  at  intervals  of  time  and  space, 
thus  too  creating  with  a  beginning  and  at  intervals, 
because  he  sees  this  to  be  right  and  rational,  and  there- 
fore willing  it.  We  may  believe  anything  here  that  a 
revelation  otherwise  credible  tells  us  about  it^  or  that  our 


344  CREATION  ALWAYS   AND   EVERYWHERE. 

own  imagination  can  conceive,  and  revelation  does  not 
deny.  But  this  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  pan- 
theistic view  that  has  been  referred  to,  and  which,  by 
making  creation  an  attribute  independent  of  the  Divine 
will  and  reason  determining  the  times,  and  spaces,  and 
degrees,  takes  away  the  supernatural,  and  destroys  every 
logical  difference  between  God  and  nature.  Hence  the 
unavoidable  conclusion  —  The  view  which  makes  creation 
a  necessity  must  be  false,  because,  if  such  view  were  car- 
ried out  to  its  utmost  length,  it  would  follow  that  God 
must  not  only  have  been  creating  altvays^  but  every 
wTiere^  and  almightily,  that  is,  with  the  utmost  possible 
degree  of  creative  energy.  In  other  words, — He  must 
have  been  creating  at  all  times,  and  in  all  places,  all  pos- 
sible things  in  their  highest  possible  intensity  or  degree 
of  being — which  is  infinitely  absurd  and  contrary  to  fact. 
We  can  conceive  of  but  one  answer  to  this  which  has 
even  the  shadow  of  plausibility.  Such  interior  intervals 
of  time  and  space,  it  may  be  said,  and  such  lower  varie- 
ties in  degree,  may  be  essential  to  the  excellence  of  the 
work  as  a  whole,  and  if  so,  the  creative  energy  may  be 
supposed  to  act  with  as  much  skill,  and,  in  a  certain 
sense,  with  as  much  effective  power  in  ordering  these 
vacancies,  and  these  lower  degrees  of  substance,  as  in 
the  building  of  the  highest  heavens,  and  in  the  produc- 
tion of  the  highest  forms  of  life.  This  sounds  well  and 
even  piously.  But  then,  again,  why  may  not  the  same 
reasoning  be  used  in  respect  to  an  anterior  uncreative 
time,  and  an  unmeasured  outside  vacuity  ?  They,  too, 
may  be  essential  to  the  highest  excellence  of  the  work. 
Its  very  finiteness  may  be  its  completeness,  its  finish,  its 
TgXsioVr]?,  ov  perfection.     It  may  be  all  the  better  work, 


GOD  CREATES  WHEN  AND  WHERE  HE  WILLS.  345 

better  in  itself,  better  fitted  for  the  divine  purposes,  by 
having  a  beginning  and  a  bound.  "VVe  come  again  as 
before  to  God's  -will  and  reason  deciding  \yhat  is  best  — 
deciding  what  he  shall  create,  and  where,  and  ivhen,  and 
how,  and  for  how  long,  and  to  what  extent  in  space,  and 
to  what  height  of  being,  in  order  to  have  it  the  best  pos- 
sible universe  according  to  that  type,  idea,  or  knowledge 
of  it,  which  only  the  Divine  Mind  can  possess.  "  Who 
hath  directed  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord"  ?  Who,  without 
a  revelation,  shall  assume  to  determine  the  idea  of  the 
universe  ?  This  only  can  we  know — Whether  the  worlds 
be  one  or  many, —  whether  they  be  all  inhabited,  or  there 
be  some  that  present  only  a  sohtary  grandeur  to  the  eye 
of  their  Maker, — whether  the  design  of  the  world  be  the 
greatest  amount  of  happiness,  or  pleasing  sensations,  of 
the  greatest  number  of  sentient  beings,  or  whether  it  be 
an  artistic  excellence  terminating  in  the  work  itself  with- 
out regard  to  any  outside  utilities, —  or  whether  there  be 
some  other  remote  and  unknown  end  to  which  they  are 
all  subservient — still,  must  we  say,  it  is  all  wise,  all  fair, 
all  right.  This  is  not  an  inductive  or  scientific,  but  an 
a  priori  dictum  of  the  soul.  It  is  the  idea  of  Plato  in 
the  Timaeus  (37  C),  where  he  represents  the  Eternal 
Father  as  rejoicing  in  his  work,  when  he  beholds  the  uni- 
versal organism  first  moving  on  in  beauty  and  obedience. 
What  is  more  for  us  than  reason,  or  Plato,  and  all  philo- 
sophy, is  the  sublime  assertion  of  divine  revelation — 
"  And  God  saw  everything  that  he  had  made,  and  behold 
it  was  good —  very  good." 

The  other  fallacy  to  which  we  alluded  as  connected 
with  this  space  aspect,  is  found  in  the  common  opinion, 
that  not  only  the  intellectual  notion,  but  the  devout  feel- 


846  EMOTIONAL  VIEW   OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 

ing  of  God's  greatness,  is  vastly  enlarged  by  the  discove- 
ries of  modern  science,  or  wliat  may  be  called  the  mathe- 
matical or  numerical  idea  of  the  universe.  Now,  in 
reference  to  this,  it  may  be  said,  in  the  first  place,  that 
our  emotional  conceptions  are  very  little  dependent  upon 
our  speculative  or  scientific  knowledge,  as  expressed  in 
numerical  or  quantitative  formulas.  The  reason  may 
follow  these  to  any  extent,  but  the  power  of  conceiving  can 
not  go  beyond  a  certain  limit.  We  have  no  higher,  no 
greater  conception  of  a  million  worlds  than  of  a  thousand, 
no  greater  conception  of  a  thousand  worlds  than  of  a 
hundred, — yea,  the  image  or  conception  which  one  man 
has  of  one  hundred  worlds  may  be  far  inferior  in  grandeur, 
in  vividnesi,  in  power  of  emotion,  to  that  which  another 
soul  has  of  one.  David  and  Socrates,  vdth  no  knowledge 
of  the  numerical  distances,  or  magnitudes,  of  the  stars, 
may  have  really  had  a  wider,  a  loftier,  a  more  reverent 
feeling  of  the  greatness  of  God's  kingdom  than  La  Place. 
So,  may  we  say,  one  soul  may  have  a  more  lofty  as  well 
as  a  more  devout  view  of  God's  greatness  at  the  sight 
of  a  mountain,  than  another  in  the  contemplation  of  pla- 
nets, and  comets,  and  nebulae,  and  double  stars,  with  all 
their  merely  numerical  or  scientific  estimations.  The 
reason  is  that  the  latter  has  simply  numbers,  and  mathe- 
matical formulae.  His  soul  is  upon  his  calculus  instead 
of  the  heavens.  It  would  be  equally  upon  it  if  employed 
to  measure  the  most  microscopic  distances.  We  astonish 
ourselves  with  long  rows  of  decimals,  but  no  delusion 
could  be  greater  than  that  which  would  make  these  im- 
mense numbers  the  measure  of  ideas,  much  less  of  the 
moral  emotion  connected  with  them.  He  who  praised 
God  for  "  making  Orion  and  bringing  forth  Mazzaroth  in 


NOT  DEPENDENT  ON  NUMERICAL  IDEAS.    847 

his  seasons,"  may  really  have  had  a  more  awe-inspiring 
view  of  the  universe  than  the  modern  lecturer  who  talks 
to  us  of  millions,  and  billions,  and  trillions,  and  the  won- 
drous human  intellect  that  cafi  make  such  transcending 
calculations  in  arithmetic.  Yet  still  the  stars  remain 
but  points  for  the  conception,  as  well  as  for  the  eye. 
The  fancy,  too,  that  peoples  them,  is  only  a  repetition  of 
the  world  on  which  we  dwell.  It  is  only  a  numerical 
enlargement,  and  even  this,  instead  of  being  habitually 
with  the  mind,  like  the  sense  of  grandeur  which  has 
always  been  connected  with  the  visible  firmament,  is 
only  feebly  present  while  the  mathematical  formulae  are 
before  it. 

The  third,  or  rank  aspect,  we  have  said,  is  pecuHar  to 
the  Bible.  Science  has  little  or  nothing  to  say  about  it. 
The  Scriptures,  both  old  and  new,  give  us  no  obscure  inti- 
mations of  ascending  ranks  of  being — of  Angels,  of  Arch 
angels.  Thrones,  Dominions,  Principalities,  Powers,  Sera- 
phim, Kedoshim,*  or  Holy  Ones,  rising  higher  and  higher 
until  the  mind  is  lost  in  the  amazing  altitude  of  conceived 
power  and  intelligence.     There  is  in  all  this,  however, 

*The  reader  who  will  consult  such  passages  as  Job,  v, 
1,  XV,  15,  Zachariah,  xiv,  5,  Psalms,  Ixxxix,  6,  8,  Deutero- 
nomy, xxxiii,  3,  where  this  Hebrew  word  occurs  in  a  peculiar 
manner,  must  see  that  it  is  not  a  general  term,  but  denotes  a 
peculiar  order  of  superhuman,  and  perhaps  superangelic,  be- 
ings. There  is  much  in  some  of  its  uses,  as  in  Proverbs,  ix, 
10,  XXX,  3,  Hosea,  xii,  1,  to  favor  the  idea  of  its  denoting  the 
Divine  Persons.  In  such  cases,  Gesenius  would  regard  it  as 
only  a  superlative  name  of  Deity,  or  an  intensive  plural  equi- 
valent to  Sanctis simus.  We  can  only  remark  here,  that  this 
courtly  mode  of  explanation,  which  is  also  applied  to  the  name 
Elohim,  is  as  unsatisfactory  as  it  is  unsupported  by  any  sound 
philological  proof  applicable  to  so  early  a  stage  of  the  sacred 
language. 


848  Paul's  "heavenly  places.'* 

but  little  of  the  space  idea ;  and  yet  the  thought  of  such 
ascending  ranks  of  being  cannot  well  be  maintained  with- 
out something  of  space  imagery.  Hence,  it  led  to  the 
conception,  on  which  we  have  before  remarked,  of  a 
heaven  above  the  visible  heavens,  and  so  on  to  the  Third 
Heavens.  This,  however,  was  mainly  in  aid  of  the  imagi- 
nation, and  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  convenient 
language.  The  space  imagery  did  not  enter  into  the 
essence  of  the  idea.  Especially  may  this  be  affirmed  of 
the  New  Testament  writers.  Paul  makes  mention  of  the 
Heavenly  Places,  the  toVoi  s'jrou^avioi,  to  which  he  "  was 
caught  up,  whether  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body,  he 
could  not  tell."  Of  course,  he  could  not  tell  us  whether 
it  was  to  a  space  heavens,  or  to  a  purely  spiritual  region. 
It  was  with  Paul,  therefore,  a  mere  aid  to  the  higher 
idea.  This  is  shown  by  the  fact,  that,  although  the 
space  view  is  not  denied,  he  does  not  dwell  upon  it,  as 
he  would  have  done  had  his  mind  been  occupied  with  it 
as  the  leading  thought.  Had  such  been  the  case,  he 
would,  doubtless,  have  been  as  circumstantial  as  the 
ancient  Gnostics  and  the  modern  Swedenborg,  who  have 
given  us  such  exact  descriptions  of  the  "  Heavenly 
Places,"  and  determined  the  number  and  order  of  the 
spheres  with  as  much  precision  as  can  be  found  in  any 
geography  of  the  earth. 

There  was,  however,  another  Bible  view,  in  which  the 
space,  and  what  we  have  called  the  altitudinal,  aspect 
were,  in  a  measure,  blended  in  conception,  though  the 
latter  is  evidently  predominant.  Reference  is  had  to 
the  frequent  mention  of  the  "Hosts  of  Heaven,"  as  ani- 
mated and  immensely  exalted  powers.  This  was  concep- 
tively  connected  with  the  optical  view  of  the  heavenly 


THE  "hosts  of  heaven."  349 

bodies,  but  not  in  the  way  of  modern  science.  Some 
have  thought  that  Da\dd  nii<^ht  have  had  the  modern 
notion  of  celestial  worlds  inhabited  like  our  own ;  but  of 
this  we  find  no  proof  in  the  Bible.  On  the  other  hand, 
however,  nothing  can  be  more  clear  than  that  the  devout 
Jewish  mind  did,  in  another  way,  conceive  of  the  heavens 
as  filled  with  mighty,  and  intelligent,  and  glorious  beings. 
Hence,  that  most  sublime  expression,  Jehovah  Sabaoth — 
The  Lord  of  Hosts.  But  these  visible  celestial  bodies, 
instead  of  being  conceived  of  as  worlds  in  space,  were 
rather  regarded  as  representative  each  of  a  separate 
individual  personality.  The  star' was  not  a  world,  nor 
an  angel,  but  its  luminosity,  although  seemingly  a  point, 
was  the  outshining  splendor  of  the  mighty  being  who  thus 
became  manifest  through  it,  and  shone  through  it,  with 
a  brightness  proportioned  to  his  individual  rank  among 
the  celestial  hosts  ;  "  for  one  star  difiereth  from  another 
star  in  glory." 

We  have  the  idea  distinctly  presented,  Isaiah,  xl,  26, 
—  "  Lift  up  your  eyes  on  high  and  see  who  hath  created 
these,  who  bringeth  out  their  host  by  number,  and  call- 
eth  them  all  by  name ;  in  the  greatness  of  might  and 
strength  not  one  faileth."  The  naming  here  is  not  what 
we  have  been  accustomed  to  regard  as  the  naming  of  the 
constellations.  The  divine  naming,  or  distinguishing,  as 
we  have  seen  in  our  comments  on  the  word  N-tp,  Genesis, 
i,  V,  is  the  assigning  to  each  thing  its  distinct  property, 
rank,  or  office.  There  seems  also  to  have  been  another 
aspect  to  the  idea.  The  departed  just  might  be  supposed 
to  rise  and  take  rank  with  the  same  exalted  company  ; 
as  we  read  in  Daniel,  xii,  3,  —  "  They  that  be  wise  shall 
shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament,  and  they  that 

30 


350  THE   ^'  STARS    OF   THE   MORNING." 

turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars  forever  and  ever/' 
Compare  with  Isaiah,  xl,  26,  the  similar  declaration. 
Psalms,  cxlvii,  4  ;  also.  Psalms,  ciii,  20,  21, —  ''Praise 
Him  all  ye  angels  of  His  that  excel  in  strength  ;  praise 
Him  all  ye  his  hosts  —  omnes  angeli,  omnes  exercitus. 
We  might  refer,  moreover,  to  what  is  said.  Job,  xxxviii, 
7,  where  the  "  stars  of  the  morning,"  who  are  also  called 
"  Sons  of  God,"  are  represented  as  shouting  for  joy  at 
the  creation  of  the  earth.  The  "  stars  of  the  morning" 
must  here  represent  personal  beings.  The  special  appli- 
cation  of  the  term  to  the  Logos,  as  we  have  seen  in  the 
ancient  versions  of  Psalm  ex,  shows  that  when  given  to 
lower  ranks  of  existence,  it  must  still  be  regarded  as 
denoting  the  highest  antiquity,  and  a  position  among  the 
greatest,  as  well  as  the  earliest,  creations  of  God. 

The  Septuagint  generally  renders  this  remarkable 
title.  The  Lord  of  Hosts,  or  Jehovah  Tsebaoth,  by  Kv^ios 
^uvotjxswv;  from  which  it  might  at  first  be  thought  that 
physical  or  dynamical  powers  were  intended.  But  the 
treatment  of  them  as  personalities  is  just  as  manifest  in 
the  Greek  version,  as  in  the  Hebrew,  or  the  Latin  of  the 
Vulgate.  Whatever  may  be  regarded  as  the  primary 
sense  of  the  root,  there  is  in  the  noun  nss  everywhere 
predominant  the  idea  of  a  well  ordered,  harmonized, 
obedient  host ;  and  hence  the  military  aspect  of  the 
term.  It  is  also  allied  to  the  very  similar  root  siast, 
whence  the  noun  •'as,  splendor,  glory,  ornament ;  as  in 
Daniel,  xi,  45,  where  it  is  applied  to  the  "  Mount  of  the 
holy  beauty,"  or  Mount  Zion.  It  is  thus,  of  all  Hebrew 
words,  the  nearest  to  the  Greek  KoV/xo?,  with  this  remark- 
able difference  characteristic  of  the  diiFerence  in  the 
national  conceptions,  that  the  Greek  has  regard  more  to 


GREEK   AND   HEBREW   IDEA   CONTRASTED.         351 

physical  or  space  harmony,  the  Hebrew  to  the  harmony 
of  rank  and  government.  In  the  one,  the  idea  clothes 
itself  in  the  beautiful  conception  of  the  "  music  of  the 
spheres,"  regarded  as  physical  spheres,  rising  one  above 
another  to  the  Empyrean ;  in  the  other,  it  is  the  still 
sublimer  view  of  the  harmony  of  empire  rising  octave 
above  octave,  through  Thrones,  Dominions,  Principali- 
ties and  Powers,  to  the  Empyrean  of  Divine  Authority, 
the  Heaven  of  Heavens  of  angelic  and  super-angelic 
orders,  the  primum  mobile,  and  Primum  Movens  of  all 
spiritual  as  well  as  physical  existences. 

Here,  too,  we  may  say,  that  in  this  altitudinal  or  rank 
aspect,  the  title  Jni^aij  n1n^  Jehovah  Sabaoth,  Lord  of 
Hosts,  is  the  counterpart  to  the  ts'^toVs?  "^Vto,  Melek  01a- 
mim,  (SudiXsug  <rwv  aKjvwVj  or  "  King  of  Eternities,"  which 
is  in  like  manner  employed  Avhen  the  universal  Kingdom 
of  God  is  presented  in  its  time  aspect,  in  distinction  from 
its  spatial  and  altitudinal  existence. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 


PLUKALITY   OF   TIME-WORLDS. 

A   PRIORI   DEDUCTION   OF   THE   IDEA. 

The.,  time    aspect    of   the  world    just    coming    into   science. — How  rr 

APFEAKS  IN  THE  SCEIPTUEES. — REMARKABLE  USE  OF  AION  IN  THE  NEW 
testament    for    the   world   ITSELF,    AND    OF    THE    PLURAL    FOR   WORLDS. — 

Hebrews,  i,  2,  xi,  3. — From  what  laws  of  thinking  came  this  strange 
IDIOM  ? — How  different  from  the  modern  idea. — Insufficient  explana- 
tions.— It  denotes  time-worlds  in  distinction  from  worlds  of  space. 
—How  it  appears  in  the  Syriac — the  Arabic— the  Coptic. — Old  testa- 
ment  USE    of    OLAM   for   world. — ECCLESIASTES,   III,    11. — OtHER   PASSAGES. 

— Ecclesiastes,  I,  10. — Ancient  idea  of  worlds  or  cycles  repeated. — 
2  Peter,  hi,  13,  IIabakkuk,  in,  6. — "Hills  of  olam." — The  "everlast- 
ing ways  "  OR  on-goings  of  the  world. — Psalms,  cxlv,  13,  "  The  kingdom 
of  all  worlds." — Isaiah,  xlv,  16,  "The  everlasting  salvation." — Isaiah, 
Lvii,  1.5,  "  He  who  inhabits  eternity." — A  pkiobi  deduction  of  the  idea. 
The  idea  of  time-worlds  older  than  the  enlargement  of  the  space 
conception. — It  goes  back  in  the  past  and  forward  in  the  future. — 
What  effect  this  should  have  upon  our  interpretations. — Slow 
aiARCH  of  ages  in  the  moral  world. 

The  time-aspect  of  the  world  has  only  of  late  years  been 
taken  mto  the  field  of  science ;  but  the  Scriptures  hold 
a  language  in  respect  to  it  which,  we  are  satisfied,  has 
not  received  from  critics  and  commentators  the  attention 
it  deserves.  It  must  strike  the  most  careless  reader  of 
the  Greek  of  the  New  Testament,  that  aluv  is  used  in  a 
very  singular  way ;  and  yet  so  much  have  we  been  gov- 
erned by  the  modern  idea,  which  regards  all  beyond  the 
present  world  as  a  unit  of  undivided  duration,  whether 
we  take  it  before  or  after,  that  there  has  seldom,  if  ever, 
been  an  attempt  to  account  for  the  idiom.  When  noticed 
at  all,  it  is  turned  off  as  an  accidental  anomaly,  perhaps, 


TIME-WORD   USED  FOE  THE  WORLD.  353 

or  treated  as  having  come  from  some  other  usage  which 
is  actually  an  effect,  instead  of  a  cause,  of  the  peculiarity. 
But  there  is  nothing  accidental  in  language.  It  has  its 
laws  as  sure  as  those  of  chemistry  or  geology.  So  impor- 
tant an  idiom  as  this  must  have  had  its  ground  in  certain 
ideas ;  and  these  ideas,  although  they  may  afterwards 
have  become  obsolete  while  the  derived  expression  still 
remains,  must  once  have  had  a  fresh  youthful  vigor,  and 
a  distinct  significance  for  the  mind. 

It  is  a  peculiarity  of  the  language  of  the  Bible,  that 
a/wv  in  the  New  Testament,  and  fi^nV  in  the  Old,  are  used 
for  the  world,  and  in  the  plural  for  worlds,  apparently 
as  the  Greeks  use  xo^^j^o^,  the  Latins  mundus,  and  we  the 
world,  or  universe.  Both  are  words  of  time  and  dura- 
tion; such  is  their  primitive  and  general  character;  and 
yet  here  both  are  employed,  as  it  seems,  for  the  very 
entity  of  the  world,  or  worlds,  as  though  the  time,  or 
period  of  existence,  belonged  to  this  entity  as  much  as 
material,  or  exte^c  in  space,  if  it  did  not,  in  even  a 
higher  sense,  constitute  its  more  essential  being.  Espe- 
cially is  this  so  regarded  when  the  duration  is  cyclical. 
A  completed  period,  or  nature,  is  conceived  of  as  a  real 
thing,  just  as  much  as  an  excluding  material,  a  mathe- 
matical quantity,  and  a  bounded  space. 

Thus,  Hebrews,  i,  2, — where  it  is  said  of  the  Logos, 
'<  By  whom  he  made  the  worlds,"  touj  'AinNAS, — by 
whom  he  made  the  ages,  the  great  times  or  cycles, 
or  the  worlds  taken  chronologically  as  successive  rather 
than  synchronal,  or  spatial  existences.  Now,  how 
came  the  word  to  be  thus  employed?  It  will  not  do 
to  pass  it  over  by  simply  calling  it  a  metonymy,  as  some 
have  done,  or  a  usus  loquendi.     Whence  came  this  usm 

30* 


354  THE  IDIOM  NOT  IN  CLASSICAL  GREEK. 

loquendi  9  How  can  we  account  for  it,  unless  there  had 
been  in  the  Jewish  mind  from  the  oldest  dates  a  mode 
of  thus  conceiving  of  the  universe,  or  God's  Kingdom,  as 
taken  chronologically,  or  as  made  up  of  successive  peri- 
ods, cycles,  or  zvorlds,  reckoned  from  the  remotest  past 
and  including  the  present  chronological  world  among 
them  in  the  onward  march  to  a  similarly  divided  future  ? 
This  usage  of  alj^v  is  not  in  the  classical  Greek.  It 
must,  therefore,  have  come  from  some  influence  of  the 
Shemitic  tongues  upon  the  Hellenistic  or  New  Testament 
dialect,  or  from  something  peculiar  in  the  Hebrew  mode 
of  thinking  and  conceiving.  We  find  nothing  like  it  in 
Homer,  or  Plato,  or  ^schylus.  They  never  use  this 
word  for  the  world,  much  less  the  plural  for  a  plurality 
of  worlds,  either  in  space  or  time.  In  the  Greek  poetry, 
it  is  sometimes  used  for  indefinite  duration,  as  in  ^schy- 
lus,  SuppUces  573,  where  Zeus  is  called  King  of  the 
never-ceasing  eternity, — 

Plato  also  connects  with  it  his  metaphyaical  notion  of 
duration-less  being ;  but  of  this  cychcal,  chxonological, 
or  world-sense,  especially  of  this  plural  usage  for  succes- 
sive worlds,  there  is  not  a  trace. 

Now,  no  mode  of  speech  is  better  settled  in  the  New 
Testament.  A<wv  is  as  distinctly  used  for  world  as 
xoVfjooj,  —  always,  we  may  say,  where  pluralities  are 
denoted.  Hence  the  inference  is  unavoidable -— Whilst 
of  "  pluraUties  of  worlds"  in  space  they  had  httle  or  no 
conception,  plurality  of  worlds  in  time,  must  have  been 
an  idea  early  entertained  by  the  Jewish  and,  in  general,, 
the  Oriental  mind.  The  New  Testament  writers  never 
use  xo'tffxo/,  or  any  similar  word,  in  the  plural  •  such  use 


WORLDS   OF  WORLDS.  355 

of  a)ojv,  on  the  other  hand,  is  one  of  the  most  distinct 
features  of  their  peculiar  diction.  Thus,  when  they 
would  speak  of  God's  absolute  eternity,  they  say  •'''^o  twv 
a/wvwv,  1  Corinthians,  ii,  7, — "the  mystery  which  He 
ordained  before  the  wo7^lds.'^  When  they  would  task 
language  to  express  great  antiquity,  or  to  come  as  near 
as  they  could  to  a  never  bounded  duration,  they  redupli* 
cate  and  sometimes  retriplicate — -^k  tojs  aldvag — xui  e)s 
Tovs  aii^jva^  <rwv  aj:^vwv— -for  ages  and  for  ages  of  ages,  or 
for  worlds,  and  ivorlds  of  worlds,  or  worlds  without  end ; 
as  though  they  would  denote  higher  cycles  made  of 
cycles,  or  greater  worlds,  that  is  time  worlds,  made  up 
of  worlds,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum. 

The  use  of  this  term  in  the  New  Testament  for  our 
own  particular  world,  amidst  the  vast  succession,  is  so 
common  that  we  need  not  dwell  upon  it.  It  is  doubtless 
employed,  too,  for  subordinate  ages,  or  dispensations,  in 
this  present  world,  or  for  periods  regarded  as  less  than 
the  whole  life-time  of  our  terrestrial  physical  system; 
but  this  comes  naturally  out  of  the  greater  applications, 
and  there  is  no  difficulty  in  determining  when  it  occurs, 
or  in  distinguishing  it  from  the  greater  and  original  idea. 

The  most  striking  passage  in  the  New  Testament 
where  this  language  occurs,  and  one  which  has  the  most 
direct  application  to  our  maui  argument,  is  to  be  found, 
Hebrews,  xi,  3.  This  we  have  called  our  key  text,  as 
containing  the  central  idea  of  the  present  work.  It  has 
been  already  explained  at  some  length,  but  not  in  this 
connection.  "  By  faith  we  understand  that  the  worlds 
(r©u5  a'/wvag)  were  framed  by  the  Word  of  God."  To  the 
Hebrew  mind  the  term  carried  both  senses  conjoined. 


356  HEBREWS,   XI,   3.      GENESIS,  I. 

We,  from  our  different  mode  of  thinking,  have  to  separ 
rate  them,  and  take  one  at  a  time.  And  yet,  as  the 
word  and  the  usage  have  been  traced,  we  can  see  the 
propriety  and  perfect  union  of  both.  "  By  faith  we 
understand  that  the  ages  (the  world-times)  were  framed 
by  the  Word  of  God."  When  the  passage  is  thus  taken, 
and  fairly  taken,  it  is  hard  to  avoid  thinking  of  those 
great  world-periods  in  Genesis  which  seem  to  be  referred 
to  in  the  setting  forth  of  the  antiquity  of  Wisdom,  or  the 
outgoings  of  the  hypostatized  Word,  Proverbs,  viii,  24, 
and  Micah,  v,  1.  The  Greek  verb  employed  is  in  closest 
harmony  with  this  idea.  It  is  tolerably  well  rendered 
in  our  translation,  "  were  framed^''  but  its  general  sense 
is  to  adapt,  to  put  in  order,  to  arrange,  to  organize. 
"  By  faith  we  understand  that  the  worlds  were  organized, 
that  the  ages  were  put  in  harmony  with  each  other  by 
the  Word  of  God."  Hence,  the  admirable  Vulgate 
translation — Fide  inteUigimus  aptata  esse  saecula  Yerbo 
Dei,  ut  ex  invisibilibus  visibiha  fierent.  They  were  put 
in  harmony  by  the  Word  of  God.  How  can  we  help 
thinking  of  the  successive  commands  as  they  are  pre- 
sented in  the  Mosaic  account,  where  the  Word  each  time 
goes  forth,  accompanied  by  the  renewing  and  restoring 
Spirit,  or  Ruah  Elohim.  And  God  said — "Let  there  be 
light," — "  Let  there  be  a  firmament," — "  Let  the  dry 
land  appear," — "Let  the  waters  bring  forth"  —  until 
the  whole  Tri-unity  is  represented  as  joining  in  the 
declaration — "Let  us  make  man  in  our  image."  At 
each  going  forth  of  Him  "  whose  goings  forth  are  of  old 
from  the  days  of  eternity,"  the  "  things  that  are  seen" 
come  out  of  "  the  things  that  are  unseen,"  until  the  ages 


STRANGE   IDIOM   OF   EARLY   LANGUAGE.  357 

are  organized,  the  harmony  is  completed  in  the  birth  of 
the  human  race,  or  to  use  the  splendid  figure  of  Drjden, 
which  is  not  unworthy  to  be  quoted  in  illustration  of  the 
language  of  Holy  Writ  — 

"The  diapason  closes  full  on  man.'" 

It  is  not  enough  to  talk  learnedly,  yet  fruitlessly,  of  its 
being  a  usm  loqmndi.  That  explains  nothing.  Whence 
came  it — we  ask  again — whence  this  strange  mode  of 
designating  the  world  or  worlds  chronologically,  thus 
taking  them  in  their  time  instead  of  their  space-aspect, 
or  longitudinally,  we  might  familiarly  say,  instead  of 
naming  them  from  their  latitude  or  spatial  quantity  ?  It 
must  certainly  have  sprung  up  in  the  ancient  Oriental 
mind  from  some  view  of  the  universal  existence  very 
different  from  that  held  in  modern  times  as  the  literal 
sense  of  the  Bible,  or  that  narrow  conception  of  a  few 
historical  generations  running  back  into  a  complete  ante- 
rior blank,  where  the  chasm  suddenly  breaks  off  with 
no  aeon^  age,  world  or  olam  before  it, —  nothing  but  an 
inconceivable  solitariness  of  the  divine  existence,  without 
any  relief  to  us  from  the  conception  of  any  foregoing 
ages  or  cj'Cles  occupied  with  the  divine  works.  Certainly 
our  most  modern  view,  had  it  prevailed  in  the  earhest 
times,  would  never  have  stamped  this  feature  upon  the 
early  languages.  It  would  never  have  brought  out  an 
idiom  by  which  the  worlds  of  God's  kingdom  would  be 
named  from  their  chronological  rather  than  their  space- 
aspect,  or  by  a  term  denoting  ages  and  successions  of 
ages  rather  than  magnitude  in  extent. 

But,  to  proceed  with  the  solution  of  the  problem, — 
this  remarkable  usage  of  the  New  Testament  Greek  came 


368  SYRIA C   AND   ARABIC   USAGE. 

into  it  from  the  Hebrew.    In  our  common  mode  of  trans 
lating  it  is  not  as  visible  in  the  older  as  in  the  later  Scrip- 
tures ;  still,  beyond  all  question,  is  it  there,  as  can  be 
made  to  appear  from  the  following  considerations : 

The  first  is  the  usage  of  the  cognate  tongues.  It  is 
beyond  all  doubt  in  the  Syriac.  This  latter  language  is 
pervaded  by  it.  In  the  Peschito  version  of  the  New 
Testament,  the  word  olmo^  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  olam^ 
is  everywhere  used  for  world,  not  only  in  all  cases  where 
the  Greek  has  aj^^^v,  but  even  where  it  has  xoVfj.o^.  The 
same  thing  appears  everywhere  in  the  Syriac  version  of 
the  Old  Testament.  We  find  it  not  only  in  its  common 
time  sense,  but  also  in  its  world  significance.  Whence 
did  the  Syriac  derive  it  ?  It  appears  in  its  earliest  use 
as  a  written  speech,  and  that,  too,  as  a  natural  congene- 
rous idiom  without  any  mark  of  foreign  growth.  It 
bears  about  it  every  evidence  of  belonging  to  the  oldest 
stages  of  this  very  early  language.  It  is  the  same,  too, 
in  all  the  Shemitic  tongues  as  they  have  come  down  to 
us.  The  usage  exists  underived  in  each.  The  Arabic 
employs  for  world  the  same  word,  or  a  word  from  the 
same  root,  and  there  is  not  the  least  reason  for  supposing 
that  this  came  into  it  from  the  Hebrew,  either  BibUcal 
or  Rabbinical.  Such  a  mode  of  designating  the  world 
or  worlds,  by  a  word  of  time  in  distinction  from  a  word 
of  space,  appears  to  be  as  old  as  any  part  of  the  language, 
and  in  all  probability  came  down  from  the  days  of  Ish- 
mael,  or  Avhen  Isaac,  and  Ishmael,  and  Abraham,  and 
Nahor,  yet  spoke  what  was  substantially  the  old  Syriac 
of  Padan  Aram,  then  not  very  different  from  either 
branch  as  they  b^egan  to  diverge  afterwards  in  the  dia- 


ETHIOPIC,   CHALDAIC,   SAMARITAN.  359 

lects  of  the  descendants  of  Jacob  and  Laban.*  Hence, 
in  the  Koran,  God  is  called  Rahhi  Halamina,  the  Lord 
of  the  Worlds,  just  as  in  the  Old  Testament  he  is  desig- 
nated by  that  corresponding  title,  sa^toVs  Vs  ^V^^  (Psalms, 
cxlv,  13,)  which  Paul  translates,  1  Timothy,  i,  17,  "  King 
of  the  eternities" —  of  all  eternities,  or  all  worlds. f  From 
this  expression  in  the  Koran,  Father  Maurice,  as  Sale 
tells  us,  endeavored  to  prove  that  Mohammed  beHeved 
in  a  plurality  of  worlds,  which  he  calls  the  heresy  of  the 
Manichaeans.  Reland  shows  this  to  be  groundless  ;  and 
so  it  doubtless  is,  if  by  worlds  are  to  be  understood  space 
worlds,  or  worlds  in  space.  But  a  plurality  of  time- 
worlds,  or  worlds  in  time,  is  an  idea  much  older  than 
Mohammed.  It  is  in  the  very  roots  of  the  Arabic,  as  in 
all  the  Shemitic  tongues. 

The  same  usage  is  in  the  Ethiopic.  In  the  Eastern 
Aramaean,  or  Chaldaic,  it  is  very  striking.  Hence  it 
has  been  called  a  Chaldaism ;  but  this,  if  it  were  so, 
would  make  nothing  against  its  antiquity.  Whence  did 
the  Chaldeans  and  Syrians  get  it,  unless  this  idea  of 
cycles,  or  a  chronological  plurahty  of  worlds,  were  exceed- 
ingly old  among  men,  and  came  from  the  earliest  elements 
of  thought  and  speech  ? 

In  the  Samaritan  dialect,  the  use  of  this  word  is  quite 
peculiar.  It  has  the  world  sense,  as  in  Deuteronomy, 
xxxiii,  27,  where  it  is  used  to  translate  the  Hebrew  olam, 
— "  Underneath  are  the  arms  of  the  world,"  that  is,  "  the 
arms  that  support  the  world."     But,  besides  this,  it  is 

*  That  there  had  become,  in  this  later  generation,  a  more 
marked  difference,  the  reader  will  see  by  consulting  Genesis, 
xxxi,  47. 

tSee  the  Koran.  Ch.  I,  and  Sales'  note. 


360  THE   COPTIC.      NAME   OF  JOSEPH, 

also  employed  for  race^  or  nature  ;  as  in  Genesis,  vii,  21, 
where  it  denotes  man  himself,  in  distinction  from  the 
other  natures,  as  though  the  human  existence,  or  the 
existence  of  the  race  in  its  time  aspect,  might  be  called 
a  ivorld. 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  too,  of  its  being  in  the  most 
ancient  Egyptian.  The  Coptic  word,  eneh,  for  age, 
eternity,  setas,  seculum,  is  also  used,  in  like  manner,  for 
ivorld^  or  as  corresponding  to  the  Greek  xoVfxo^.  But 
this,  it  might  be  said,  is  the  later  dialect,  and  how  far 
it  represents  the  earlier  Egyptian  we  cannot  surely  know. 
This  doubt,  however,  is  put  at  rest  by  the  evidence  that 
this  very  word,  which  abounds  in  the  later  Coptic,  is  a 
part  of  the  name  bestowed  by  Pharaoh  upon  Joseph. 
As  given  in  Hebrew  letters  it  is  rnsysj  nsai!,  Zophnath- 
paeneah.  The  latter  part  is  this  very  Coptic  word  with 
tiie  article,  and  we  see,  therefore,  why  the  Vulgate  trans^ 
lated  the  title,  Salvatorem  Mimdi,  "  Saviour  of  the 
World."  The  Egytians,  as  Gesenius  rightly  says,  were 
wont  to  call  the  land  of  Egypt  by  the  magnificent  title 
of  tJie  ivorld.  Thus  the  employment  of  the  term  is 
hyperbohcal,  but  it  shows,  just  as  clearly,  the  ancient 
application  of  a  time-word  to  the  world  itself,  as  denoting 
the  cosmical  entity  as  well  as  any  word  of  space.  So, 
also,  the  schohast  on  Josephus'  Ant.  2,  6,  explains  it  as 
meaning  Cwrv^^  xoV^xou,  Savior  of  the  World. 

Winer  attempts  to  account  for  the  idiom,  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  a  plural  noun  is  sometimes  employed  when  the 
object  denoted  consists  of  several  parts,  or  is  so  conceived 
to  consist,  and  that,  therefore,  this  Greek  word,  Hebrews, 
xi,  3,  and  the  corresponding  Hebrew,  are  used  for  the 
plural  idea  of  the  heavens.     But  there  is  no  proof  of 


APOCRYPHAL   USAGE.  861 

this.  The  whole  analogy  of  the  language,  and  of  this 
particular  usage,  is  against  it.  Neither  the  Greek  nor 
the  Hebrew  word  has  the  least  trace  of  anything  optical 
in  its  primary  or  secondary  meanings.  The  time-sense 
is  never  lost  in  the  world  idea,  and  had  the  Bible  writers 
intended  to  convey  the  image  of  a  plurality  of  heavens, 
as  Winer  says,  they  would  have  used  the  common  Greek 
and  Hebrew  words  that  are  so  frequently  employed  for 
that  purpose  in  other  places. 

Something  like  this  notion  of  Winers'  might  perhaps 
be  drawn  from  the  Rabbinical  Hebrew,  and  the  Rabbin- 
ical writers,  among  whom  the  old  time-sense  is  less  dis- 
tinct, and  the  space  aspect  comes  more  into  view.  But 
this  was  because  they  did  not  understand  the  ancient 
idea,  and  hence  their  language  becomes  more  and  more 
conformed  to  the  modern  notion.  The  Rabbinical  writ- 
ers have  in  many  respects  lost  the  spirit  of  the  ancient 
Hebrew  ;  and  we  need  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  the  ideas 
of  the  Old  Testament  are  often  better  preserved  among 
the  wild  Arab  tribes  of  the  desert,  than  by  the  doctors 
of  the  modern  Jewish  Synagogue. 

It  may  be  urged,  as  our  second  proof,  that  this  use  of 
the  word  is  to  be  traced  in  those  apocryphal  Jewish  books 
that  were  written  between  the  close  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  commencement  of  the  New.  The  words  here 
are  Greek,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  Hebrew 
origin  of  the  ideas,  or  at  all  events,  of  the  language  having 
a  peculiar  Hebraistic  shade  of  meaning.  The  reader  is 
referred  to  Ecclesiasticus,  xxxvi,  17,  o  Qsog  <rwv  aiwvwv, 
and  the  similar  expression,  Tobit,  xiii,  6,  where  we  have 
the  same  title,  ''  The  King  of  the  eternities,"  or  "  King 


31 


362  OLD   TESTAMENT  USAGE. 

of  the  Worlds,"  precisely  as  it  is  employed  by  the  Apos- 
tle, 1  Timothy,  i,  17. 

We  prove,  then,  that  this  is  not  simply  a  New  Testa- 
ment idiom,  having  its  origin  in  some  peculiar  Hellenistic 
ideas.  It  is  found,  too,  at  a  date  anterior  to  any  Rabbi- 
nical influence.  How,  then,  came  it  to  be  employed  in 
this  distinct  manner,  unless  the  usage  had  had  a  distinct 
and  well  understood  ground  in  the  older  Scriptures  ?  Its 
employment  in  the  New  Testament  could  not  have  been 
sudden  or  capricious.  We  say,  then,  in  the  third  place, 
that  this  world-sense  of  the  time-word  olam,  is  a  clearly 
marked  idiom  of  the  old  Hebrew  writings.  We  may  not 
seem  to  meet  it  so  often  there,  but  this  is  owing  to  its 
not  being  sufficiently  brought  out  in  the  common  transla- 
tion. 

It  may  be  said,  by  way  of  preparatory  remark,  that 
there  is  certainly  something  worthy  of  note  in  the  plural 
use  of  the  Hebrew  word,  and  especially  those  reduplica- 
tions of  it  by  which  they  would  seem  to  make  an  eternity 
the  measure,  or  measuring  unit,  of  still  greater  eternities. 
But  what  is  yet  more  striking  is  the  usage  of  which  we 
are  now  treating,  namely,  the  application  of  the  word  ta 
the  world,  and,  among  others,  to  this  present  world  of 
the  human  race.  The  most  clear  passage  in  which  we 
find  this  beyond  all  dispute,  is  Ecclesiastes,  or  Koheleth, 
iii,  11, — "  God  hath  made  everything  beautiful  in  its 
time  ;  also,  he  hath  set  the  world  in  their  heart,  so  that 
no  man  can  find  out  the  work  that  God  maketh  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end,"  or  "  He  hath  so  set  the  world  in 
their  heart,"  etc.  In  thus  rendering  saV^s,  our  common 
translation  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  all  the  ancient 
versions  without  exception.     The  Syriac  has  that  same 


ECCLESIASTES,   III,   11.  368 

word  bj  which  it  so  often  translates  aiwv  in  its  version  of 
the  New  Testament,  and  which  it  uses,  Hebrews,  i,  2, 
xi,  3.  The  Septuagint  has  the  corresponding  Greek. 
The  Vulgate  renders  it  mundus.  The  Targum  gives 
the  same  meaning  as  the  Syriac,  and  employs  the  same 
radical  word.  To  this  consent  all  the  older  commenta- 
tors, and  the  best  among  the  moderns,  although  they 
would  draw  different  inferences  as  to  the  fair  meaning 
of  the  passage,  De  Wette  and  Gesenius  retain  the 
rendering  worlds  but  interpret  it  of  the  Welt-sinn,  the 
love  or  study  of  the  world ;  but,  as  the  opponents  of  the 
view  maintain,  this  sense  of  worldliness  has  but  little 
agreement  with  the  context.  Hence  Hitzig  goes  entirely 
off  this  old  ground,  and  resorts  to  the  Arabic,  whence  he 
gets  the  sense  of  intelligence,  although,  in  so  doing,  he 
has  to  give  the  word  an  entirely  different  pointing,  and  to 
take  a  late  derivative  meaning  which  has  come  by  a  remote 
and  circuitous  route  from  the  old  Hebrew  idea  of  the 
root.  In  this  he  is  followed  by  Prof.  Stuart,  who  holds 
in  contempt  all  the  ancient  uniformity  of  versions  and 
commentators,  because,  he  says,  such  a  rendering  gives 
no  intelHgible  sense.  Perhaps  it  does  not  when  viewed 
from  a  stand  point  which  permits  us  to  see  no  other  than 
the  space  meaning  of  the  word  world.  But  take  the 
term  in  its  chronological  aspect,  and  there  comes  forth  a 
sense  not  only  easy,  but  most  clear  and  significant.  Let 
the  reader  bear  in  mind  the  scope  of  the  preceding 
verses, — "  there  is  a  time  or  season  for  all  things  that 
are  done  under  the  heavens," — and  he  will  see  the 
marked  contrast  between  the  particular  periods  of  which 
man  can  judge,  and  the  great  olam  or  world-time  whose 
design  and  idea  baffle  all  his  search,  unless  aided  by  a 


364   WORLD-SENSE  OF  OLAM.    ECCLESIASTES,  III,  17. 

revelation  making  known  the  origin  and  destiny  of  the 
mundane  system.  This  is  so  fully  declared  in  chapter 
viii,  17,  of  this  same  book,  that  we  may  almost  regard  it 
as  an  exegesis  of  the  passage  before  us, — "  Then  I  saw 
in  respect  to  the  whole  work  of  God,  that  man  is  not  able 
to  find  out  the  work  which  is  done  under  the  sun ;  seeing 
that  should  a  man  labor  in  the  search  he  shall  not  find 
it ;  yea,  though  a  wise  man  (a  philosopher)  should  say 
he  w^ould  know  it,  he  shall  not  be  able  to  find  it  out."* 

The  writer  had  found  a  special  season  for  everything 
— *'  a  time  to  be  born,  a  time  to  plant,  a  time  to  love,  a 
time  to  hate," — but  the  great  all-containing  time  who 
could  understand  ?  God  hath  so  presented  the  world  to 
the  human  mind  (for  this  is  the  meaning  of  ^V  here) 
that  although  it  might  reason  well  of  passing  events,  it 
''  could  not  find  out  the  end  from  the  beginning."  The 
individual  man  occupies  but  a  point  in  the  great  world 
cycle.  He  is  in  the  current  or  flow  of  events  which  is 
ever  sweeping  round  to  the  great  consummation,  but  his 
angle  of  vision  is  too  small  to  take  in  more  than  a  few 
degrees,  or  a  few  seconds  of  a  degree,  in  the  mighty  arc, 
and  hence  all  beyond  the  vicissitudes  so  graphically  pre- 
sented in  the  first  verses  of  the  chapter  is  in  utter  dark- 
ness. He  knows  not  the  end  from  the  beginning.  With 
this  compare  what  follows  verse  14th,  and  the  sense 
becomes  still  more  evident.  Man  lives  in  the  flowing 
moments,  but  '-'•  that  which  God  does  is  tzaViyV,  forever," 
—  for  the  olam.     It  has  reference  to  the  great  world- 

*  If  any  one  would  have  a  practical  commentary  on  these 
words  of  Koheleth,  let  him  study  the  speculations  of  the  Greek 
schools  of  philosophy  respecting  the  origin  and  idea  of  the 
World. 


WORLD-SENSE   OF  OLAM.      PSALM  XC,   2.  365 

design  or  idea.  This  ignorance  of  man  is  for  his  moral 
benefit,  that  he  may  live  by  faith  when  he  cannot  see 
and  know.  And  so  Koheleth  proceeds  to  say, — "  God 
hath  done  this  that  man  might  fear  before  Him."  And 
then  again  comes  that  cyclical  idea  which  seems  to  have 
been  a  favorite  with  this  musing  preacher,- — "  That  which 
is  has  already  been,  and  that  which  is  to  come  was  long 
since,  and  God  will  require  again  that  which  is  past." 
The  Hebrew  word  here  rendered  ^as^  is  most  expressive. 
It  Hterally  means  that  which  is  pursued^  as  though  our 
mundane  existence  were  a  continual  chase,  one  event 
ever  pressing  upon  another,  or  as  Ovid  describes  the 
world's  ceaseless  flow, 

"ut  unda  impellitur  unda, 
Urgeturque  prior  veniente,  urgetque  priorem." 

The  world-sense,  in  Ecclesiastes,  iii,  11,  we  may  regard 
as  put  beyond  a  doubt ;  and  this  once  estabUshed,  we 
may  reverse  the  argument.  It  cannot  have  this  mean- 
ing, say  Hitzig  and  Stuart,  because  it  would  be  the  only 
passage  in  which  it  occurs.  Very  weak  reasoning,  this, 
even  if  the  fact  were  so.  It  would  be  simply  saying, 
that  if  a  thing  did  not  happen  twice  it  could  not  happen 
at  all.  But  the  argument,  whether  strong  or  weak,  may 
be  eflfectually  turned  the  other  way.  This  frequent  New 
Testament  world-sense  once  estabhshed  here,  and  shown 
to  be  in  such  admirable  harmony  with  the  context,  we 
have  the  best  warrant  for  extending  it  to  other  parts 
of  the  Old  Testament,  where  it  gives  a  clear  and  harmo- 
nious significance.  Thus,  in  our  frequently  quoted  Psalm 
xc,  2,  — "  Before  the  mountains  were  born,  before  the 
genesis  of  the  earth,  from  olam  to  olam^  from  world  to 
world,  Thou  art,  0  Gt)d."     Compare  the  context  and 

o-|* 


366        god's  kingdom  measured  by  olam^, 

observe  the  perfect  unity  in  the  transition  of  thought. 
"  Thou  hast  been  our  dwelUng  place  in  all  generations." 
Here  we  have  the  idea  of  the  settled  place,  the  homestead 
which  remains  comparatively  permanent  amid  the  flowing 
generations  of  its  successive  occupants.  In  most  impres- 
sive contrast,  God  is  said  to  be  from  world  to  world. 
As  our  individual  hfe  is  measured  by  years,  so  patheti- 
cally reckoned  in  verse  10th  of  this  same  Psalm,  and  our 
world-time,  or  the  life-time  of  our  race  by  generations, 
so  is  His  age,  or  His  kingdom,  measured  by  worlds  or 
world-times  as  the  greatest  measuring  unit  of  which  we 
can  form  any  conception.  "  From  world  to  world  Thou 
art," — ^that  is,  through  a  series  of  such  aeons  or  olams 
making  an  aeonian  existence,  or  one  to  be  expressed  by 
the  adjective  ali/jvio^,  (or  olamic,)  as  our  existence,  or  the 
existence  of  our  race,  is  denoted  by  similar  adjectives 
derived  from  the  solar  year.  God's  life  time  is  aeonian, 
as  the  earthly  life  time  of  the  human  race  is  centennial 
or  millennial.* 

*  It  is  the  proper  place  here  to  remark  on  an  inference 
that  some  minds  might  draw  from  what  has  been  said  respect- 
ing these  Greek  and  Hebrew  words.  We  mean,  in  reference 
to  their  applications  to  the  subject  of  future  retribution.  ^  It 
is  true,  the  single  terms  do  not  of  themselves,  or  necessarily, 
denote  endless,  but  simply  unmeasured  duration.  It  should 
be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  it  is  by  their  fearful  redupli- 
cations the  Scriptural  writers  express  that  idea  which  no 
single  noun,  unless  it  be  an  abstract  negative,  can  fully  set 
forth.  But  what  the  single  noun  fails  to  do,  is  accompHshed 
by  the  adjective  a)wv»oc:,  as  a  term  of  greatest  measurement. 
If  we  attentively  consider  its  formation,  and  compare  it  with 
other  measui'ing  words,  we  shall  understand  its  boundless 
significance.  Ionian  duration  is  that  which  is  measured  by 
aeons,  ages,  worlds,  or  eternities,  just  as  finite  periods  are 
measured  by  years  and  centuries,  and  are  therefore  called 


CYCLICAL  IDEA.      ECCLESIASTES,   I,   10.  867 

We  venture  to  take  the  ground  that  the  same  sense 
will  suit  the  passage,  Ecclesiastes,  i,  10, —  "Is  it  said, 
Lo,  this  is  new  ?  It  hath  been  already  (le-olamirn)  in 
the  ages  that  were  before  us."  What  prevents  our  tak- 
ing here  the  larger  and  more  primary  idea,  and  thus 
translating  it  ?  "  in  the  worlds  that  were  before  us." 
Such,  too,  may  be  the  rendering  of  the  Septuagint  and 
the  Vulgate.  Both  use  the  same  terms  that  are  employed 
in  the  Greek  and  Latin,  of  Hebrews,  xi,  3,  and  that  so 
often  have  this  world-sense  in  the  New  Testament.  Can 
any  one  say  that  the  old  translators  did  not  have  the 
same  thought  in  the  rendering  of  this  passage,  and  that 
their  words,  in  this  sense,  would  not  be  a  fair  equivalent 
of  the  Hebrew  ?  So,  too,  may  we  say,  in  respect  to  the 
Syriac  version.  It  employs  here  the  very  word  it  has 
so  frequently,  and  almost  constantly,  used  for  worlds. 
Now  it  need  not  be  maintained  that  such  is  the  true 
and  only  rendering  of  this  passage.  The  word  may  be 
taken  in  the  lesser  sense,  or  for  ages  reckoned  in  this 
present  world-time ;  but  the  other  suits  well  the  train 
of  thought  indulged  by  this  contemplative  Hebrew  sage. 
He  had  just  before  been  speaking  of  the  great  cycles  of 
nature  as  exhibited  hi  the  celestial  revolutions,  the  cur- 
rents of  the  winds  in  their  continually  repeated  gyrations, 
the  running  of  the  rivers  into  the  sea  and  their  returning 
again  by  evaporation,  or  some  other  cyclical  law,  to  the 

centennial,  millennial,  etc.  There  being  no  greater  unit  of 
measurement  than  the  olanij  there  is  no  limit  to  the  concep- 
tion of  the  whole  which  it  measures  or  divides.  In  this  way 
the  adjective  comes  to  denote  absolute  eternity,  as  is  put 
beyond  all  doubt  by  its  use,  2  Corinthians,  iv,  18.  It  is 
there  the  antithesis  of  the  temporal,  and  can  have  no  mea- 
Burable  bound. 


368      WORLD-SENSE  OF  OLAM  IN  OTHER  PASSAGES. 

place  from  whence  they  set  out.  All  things  are  repre- 
sented as  in  perpetual  circling  revolution ;  and  what  was 
there  unnatural  in  his  extending  it  to  other  natures  or 
worlds  preceding  this  on  a  vaster  scale  ?  The  cyclical 
idea  that  all  things  come  round  and  round  again,  we 
know  was  a  very  ancient  one ;  Koheleth  was  probably 
familiar  with  it ;  and  if  so,  nothing  would  be  more  ger- 
mane to  the  train  of  thought  he  was  indulging.  This 
interpretation  does  not,  of  course,  assume  the  correctness 
of  any  such  cyclical  view,  or  regard  the  Scriptures  as 
endorsing  it,  any  more  than  it  endorses  the  other  specu- 
lations of  Koheleth  respecting  man  and  his  destiny. 
Yet  still  his  use  of  language  would  be  good  authority  in 
respect  to  the  predominance  of  certain  ancient  ideas, 
whether  true  or  false  ;  and  this  is  the  chief  use  we  would 
make  of  it  in  the  argument.  The  reader  will  see,  too, 
how  much  this  interpretation  is  supported  by  the  view 
already  taken  of  Ecclesiastes,  iii,  15,  where  the  cyclical 
idea  is  so  very  evident. 

In  Ecclesiastes,  iii,  11,  the  world-sense  is  the  only  one 
which  it  will  fairly  admit.  There  are,  again,  passages 
where  it  gives  a  striking  and  harmonious  meaning,  though 
not  so  exclusively  as  to  make  us  certain  that  there  can  be 
no  Other.  Among  these  we  may  refer  to  Habakkuk,  iii, 
6, — "  He  stood  and  measured  the  earth.  He  looked  and 
scattered  the  nations ;  then  leaped  apart  the  ancient 
mountains ;  sink  down  the  everlasting  hills ;  His  ways 
are  everlasting."  In  each  one  of  these  clauses,  especially 
the  last,  may  'ss\Sy,  like  d/wv  in  the  New  Testament,  be 
rendered  world  to  the  increase  both  of  the  significance 
and  sublimity  of  the  passage.  "  The  everlasting  hills" 
are  the  hills  of  olam,  the  hills  of  the  world,  or  of  the  world- 


Ill,  6.      THE  EVERLASTING  HILLS.    369 

time,  the  hills  that  were  fixed  when  the  earth  received 
its  present  form,  and  now  remain  unmoved  amid  all  the 
flowing  changes  of  the  present  nature.  There  they  stand 
as  witnesses  of  the  old  creative  days,  during  which  they 
were  horn,  as  the  Psalmist  says.  As  we  survey  their 
changeless  attitudes,  antiquity,  great  antiquity,  is  the  first 
thought  that  comes  into  the  meditative  soul.  How  very, 
very  old  they  are,  we  mentally  exclaim,  as  we  behold 
them  ever  calmly  looking  down  upon  us  unless  disturbed 
in  their  long  repose  by  some  such  supernatural  convul- 
sion as  the  prophet  is  describing,  when  there  comes  forth 
again  the  irresistible  word,  and  they  leap  apart,  or  bow 
them  down  in  remembrance,  as  it  were,  of  the  ancient 
power.* 

In  the  latter  clause  of  Habakkuk,  iii,  6,  the  proposed 
rendering  would  be  still  more  in  harmony  with  the  whole 
style  and  spirit  of  the  passage.  It  may  be  remarked  in 
the  first  place,  that  the  pronoun  really  belongs  to  the 
predicate  of  the  sentence,  so  as  to  make  it  read,  "  the 
everlasting  ways  are  His,"  or  "  His  are  the  everlasting 
ways ;"  that  is,  to  Him  they  belong  as  their  rightful  Lord 

*  '*  The  same  phrase,  "the  everlasting  hills,"  occurs  in  Ge- 
nesis, xlix,  26,  and  Deuteronomy,  xxxiii,  15.  Of  a  similar 
kind  is  the  remarkable  expression,  the  Roch  of  Olam,  the 
"  Rock  of  Ages,"  the  Rock  of  the  World,  or  Rock  of  Eternity. 
As  applied  to  Deity,  and  the  divine  protection,  nothing  in 
language  could  so  well  combine  the  ideas  of  stability  and 
duration.  See,  also,  Deuteronomy,  xxxii,  4,  and  Isaiah, 
xxvi,  4,  where  the  above  phrase  is  rendered  "everlasting 
strength."  Compare  with  them  Deuteronomy,  xxxiii,  27, — 
"The  ancient  God  {Elohe  Kedhem,  literally  the  God  of  anti- 
quity,) is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath  are  the  arms  of  olam" 
— the  arms  of  the  world,  that  built  the  world  in  space,  and 
support  its  on-goings  in  time. 


370  THE   EVERLASTING   WAYS. 

to  the  exclusion  of  any  claim  of  chance  or  nature.  This 
at  once  opens  up  the  passage,  and  causes  it  to  assume  an 
older  and  a  higher  aspect.  This,  too,  was  in  the  minds 
of  some  of  the  older  commentators,  such  as  Pagnini, 
Drusius,  Vatablus,  and  others,*  who  render  &Vi5>-  nis-'Vri, 
itinera  mundi,  vestigia  eternitatis,  the  ivays  or  on-goings 
of  the  ivorldy  the  footsteps  of  eternity.  These  they  refer 
not  only  to  the  government  of  God  in  human  history,  but 
to  the  harmonious  movements  of  the  celestial  hosts. 
"  Intelligitur  motus  sphaerarum  celestium,  quasi  dicas, 
non  solum  regit  mundum  istum  inferiorem  sed  etiam 
superiorem,"  (Vatablus.)  "  Ita  itinera  mundi  vocantur 
rationes  agendi  quibus  Deus  hunc  mundum  eternum 
regit,"  (Drusius.)  SubUme  as  this  is,  it  has  too  much 
of  a  topical  or  space  aspect,  or  rather,  is  too  astronomi- 
cal to  agree  with  the  old  ideas.  If,  however,  we  take 
olam  in  its  chronological  or  time-world  sense,  the  har- 
mony of  expression  and  idea  becomes  complete.  The 
itinera  mundi  are  the  on-goings  of  the  world  in  time,  the 
creative  epochs  in  which  God  is  represented  as  marching 
forth  from  eternity ;  for  riis">Vrr  has  strikingly  this  sense 
of  a  regular  stately  progression  with  something  of  a  mili- 
tary aspect,  as  may  be  seen  in  Nahum,  ii,  6,  Job,  vi,  19, 
Psalms,  Ixviii,  25.  These  "  everlasting  ways,"  or  on-go- 
ings of  olam,"  have  been  referred  to  the  historical  deal- 
ings of  God  in  the  Jewish  exodus.  In  thus  explaining 
it^  some  commentators  run  into  the  most  frigid  interpre- 
tations ;  the  "  mountains"  are  nations,  and  the  "  hills" 
are  kings,  whilst  the  "  everlasting  ways  are  victories 
obtained  by  means  of  the  divine  aid."  In  its  general 
sense,  doubtless,  some  parts  of  this  sublime  prophetical 

*  See  the  References  in  the  Critica  Sacra. 


PSALMS,  CXLV,  13.  KINGDOM  OF  ALL  WORLDS.  371 

anthem  might  present  an  adaptation  to  the  exodus,  or 
other  historical  events;  but  we  feel  that  there  is  nothing 
forced  in  the  thought  that  there  is,  also,  a  higher  sense, 
and  that  in  other  parts  the  writer  rises  above  the  national 
history  to  the  contemplation  of  the  greater  works  of  God. 
From  the  mention  of  the  "  ancient  mountains"  and  the 
"  everlasting  hills,"  the  transition  to  the  old  creative 
times  was  most  direct.  We  feel  that  we  are  in  the  ris- 
ings and  swellings  of  a  chmax,  and  where  could  it  have 
a  more  fitting  summit  than  in  such  a  challenging  to  Deity 
the  very  on-goings  of  the  world  in  their  highest  order  of 
chronological  development.  It  need  only  be  remarked 
here,  that  the  view  thus  given  is  supported  by  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Vulgate,— Contriti  sunt  montes  seculi,  in- 
curvati  sunt  colles  mundi  ab  itineribus  aeternitatis  ejus. 

Our  next  reference  is  to  Psalms,  cxlv,  13,  commonly 
rendered,  ''Thy  kingdom  is  an  everlasting  'kingdom.''^ 
The  translation  here  is  defective.  There  is  certainly 
something  in  the  Hebrew  which  our  single  term  everlast- 
ing fails  to  express.  The  plurality  so  prominent  in  the 
Hebrew  wholly  disappears,  and  with  it  all  the  ideas  it  so 
vividly  suggests.  The  original  phrase  is  the  plural  of 
olam,  and  that  too  enlarged,  as  far  as  such  an  idea  can 
be  enlarged,  by  the  word  all.  ''  Thy  kingdom  is  a  king- 
dom (r=^toV3>  Vs)  of  all  eternities;"  or,  to  take  again 
that  word  which  makes  so  consistent  a  sense  in  other 
similar  passages,  (and  nowhere  suits  the  idea  better 
than  in  this  place),  ''  a  kingdom  of  all  worlds^  Here 
we  have  distinctly  a  "  plurality  of  worlds,"  not  in  the 
modern  scientific  or  spatial,  but  in  the  chronological 
sense.  The  antiquity  of  the  divine  kingdom,  not  its 
extent,  is  the  inspired  idea,  and  yet  it  is  an  antiquity 


3T2     DANIEL,   VIII,   18.      REVELATIONS,   XXII,   5« 

measured  by  worlds,  by  worlds  in  succession,  or  as  they 
follow  each  other  in  the  ni3''Vn  or  ongoings  of  the  uni- 
verse.* There  is  the  same  expression  put  in  its  most 
reduplicate  form  in  the  Chaldee  of  Daniel,  viii,  18, — • 
"  And  the  saints  of  the  Most  High  shall  receive  the  king- 
dom forever,  even  forever  and.  ever^  The  Chaldaic, 
where  the  word  has  the  world-sense  more  frequently  than 
in  Hebrew,  would  be  rendered  literally — "  for  the  world 
and  the  world  of  worlds."  Compare  with  this,  also,  the 
Greek  of  Revelations,  xi,  15,  and  xxii,  5.  In  the  latter 
passage,  the  reduplicate  form  which  we  render  "  world 
and  world  of  worlds,"  would  seem  to  be  int'^nded  to 
denote  an  absolute  or  endless  eternity.  The  millenary 
reign  is  only  one  olam ;  the  reign  which  succeeds  it  is 
forever  and  ever — for  the  world  of  worlds. 

There  would  seem,  then,  to  be  meant  by  this  expres- 

*  The  Rabbinical  expositions  of  such  passages  as  these  ex- 
hibit a  strange  mixture  of  cabalistical  absurdities,  of  later 
notions,  and  along  with  these,  at  times,  some  still  remaining 
evidences  of  the  old  Hebrew  spirit.  Sometimes  they  would 
seem  to  give  the  plural  expression  Kol  Olamim,  a  topical  or 
space  sense,  and  to  refer  it  to  what  they  call  the  mundus  infe- 
rior, the  mundus  medius,  and  the  mundus  supremus — "  the 
lower,  the  middle,  and  the  upper  world/'  Again,  it  has  with 
them  a  chronological  import,  and  they  speak  of  the  saeculum 
presens  and  the  saeculum  venturum.  Sometimes  they  talk 
analogically  of  the  mundus  magnus,  the  great  world  without, 
and  the  mundus  parvus,  or  micro-cosm  of  the  human  body. 
At  other  times,  they  regard  the  number  of  chronological  or 
time-worlds  as  immense,  but  endeavor,  nevertheless,  to  esti- 
mate, in  their  cabalistical  way,  the  duration  of  the  great 
Olamic  Kingdom.  They  find  this  in  the  numerical  value  of 
the  consonants  (K  L)  composing  the  Hebrew  word  for  all. 
These  making  fifty,  they  infer  that  there  will  be  just  50,000 
such  worlds  making  the  great  world.  Along  with  this  should 
be  noted  their  speculation  about  the  six  ages  of  the  world, 
each  a  thousand  years.     See  Buxtorf,  Chald.  Lex. 


THE   ETERNAL   DAY.  373 

sion,  "  the  kingdom  of  all  eternities,"  or  "  of  all  worlds," 
the  immeasurable  cjcle  of  God's  existence  and  govern- 
ment made  up  of  worlds  or  olams,  just  as  human  king- 
doms are  measured  by  solar  years  and  centuries.  It  is 
the  great  Yom,  the  Eternal  Day,  to  which  there  is  so 
remarkable  an  allusion,  Isaiah,  xliii,  13, — "  Even  from 
the  day,"  ciS-''to,  or,  "  before  the  day  I  am  He."  It  is 
the  'HMEPA  AmNOZ  of  2  Peter,  iii,  18.  It  is  that 
day,  so  called  in  another  well  known  passage,  Psalms,  ii,  7 
— "  Thou  art  my  Son  ;  this  day  have  I  begotten  Thee." 
It  is  the  ineffable  natal  day  of  "  the  First  Born  before  all 
creation"*— who  ''  was  anointed  from  everlasting  before 

*  Compare  with  these,  Psalms,  Ixxii,  17, — "  Before  the  sun 
is  he  called  a  son,  ittty  Tiai ;  or  more  literally,  "his  name  is 
affiliated."  Even  Bosenmiiller  has  to  admit  that  this  Psalm 
refers  to  the  Messiah,  and  that  the  unusual  verb  has  the  idea 
of  sonship.  The  Targum  and  Syriac  both  render  it  of  the 
past  eternity, — "  His  name  was  before  the  suji,''  a  Hebraism 
which  denotes  what  Paul  expresses  by  ir^c^roToxog,  before  the 
creation,  or  a  son  before  all  creation.  But  may  not  the 
Hebrew  tense  here  be  taken,  as  it  sometimes  is,  for  all  time, 
past  and  future?  x\nd  then  the  "affiliation,^''  in  this  pass- 
age, the  "sonship,"  Psalms,  ii,  7,  and  the  " anointing  from 
everlasting,"  of  Proverbs,  viii,  23,  would  be  the  same  with 
the  Kingdom  and  the  Throne,  Psalms,  xlv,  9,  Hebrews,  i,  8. 
A  certain  class  of  writers  may  doubtless  find  some  things  in 
the  Second  Psalm  that  will  suit  the  temporal  David,  and  some 
things  in  Proverbs,  viii,  which  they  may  treat  as  the  personi- 
fication of  an  attribute.  But  have  they  looked  well  to  the 
difficulties  on  the  other  side?  Have  they  weighed,  as  they 
ought,  this  mysterious  language  so  transcending  all  concep- 
tions of  an  earthly  kingdom,  or  an  earthly  begetting,  or  the 
rhetorical  proprieties  of  a  mere  allegory.  It  is  certainly  not 
a  little  remarkable  that  the  same  Hebrew  word,  and  in  the 
same  unusual  connection,  should  be  used.  Psalms,  ii,  6,  and 
Proverbs,  viii,  24,  to  express  the  inauguration  of  the  Eternal 
Son  and  of  the  Eternal  Wisdom.  In  both  cases  the  verb 
translated  ''set  vp^^  should  be  rendered  ''  anointed  J  ^ 

32 


374 

the  earth  was" — ^'  whose  goings  forth  are  from  the  days 
of  eternity." 

With  this  language  of  Psalms,  cxlv,  13,  we  may  also 
compare  Isaiah,  xIy,  16,  which  is  rendered,  "  saved  with 
an  everlasting  salvation.''^  The  Hebrew  is  B^ttV:>  niyityn, 
"  a  salvation  of  the  eternities,"  extending  through  all 
worlds,  or  commensurate  with  the  kingdom  of  God. 
These  all  have  the  same  import,  but  there  is  no  part  of 
Scripture  which  they  more  strongly  call  to  mind,  than 
the  declaration,  Isaiah,  Ivii,  15, — "  Thus  saith  the  High 
and  Lofty  One  who  inliahiteth  eternity.''^  The  language 
here  is  every  way  remarkable.  In  Psalms,  cxlv,  13, 
there  is  an  attempt  to  denote  the  absolute  eternity  of 
God's  kingdom  by  way  of  approximation,  as  we  may  say, 
through  pluralities  and  reduplications.  To  this  end  there 
is  made  use  of  a  flowing  tenii  of  number  and  measure- 
ment ;  for  vast  as  olams  and  olams  of  olams  may  be,  they 
are  still  words  of  flowing  duration.  But  in  this  passage 
from  Isaiah  we  have  a  term  of  fixedness  and  constancy. 
The  eternally  flowing  series  is  summed,  as  the  mathema- 
ticians say,  in  the  constant  term  t?,  a  word  which 
although  used  for  eternity,  is  very  different  from  olam^ 
and  presents  the  idea  in  a  very  different  manner.  Gese- 
nius  makes  it  from  my,  which  is  a  verb  of  motion  with  a 
flowing  sense  —  trayisiit,  proeessit.  But  nothing  could 
be  more  opposed  to  the  usual  force  and  spirit  of  the  word. 
Constancy,  completeness,  totality,  seem  ever  to  enter 
into  its  radical  idea ;  and  hence  we  might  better  make 
it  from  the  root  Tt3>,  which,  though  seldom  used,  has 
clearly  this  significance  of  permanence  and  stability,  as 
we  see  in  Psalms,  xx,  9,  cxlvi,  9,  and  cxlvii,  6.  Hence 
this  word  is  so  frequently  put  as  the  comt>lement  of  the 


BOETHIUS  AND  THE  SCHOOLMEN.        375 

flowing  clam  in  the  frequent  phrase  nyi  tziViyV  rendered 
forever  and  ever.  It  is  Kke  the  wth  term  at  the  end  of 
a  mathematical  series  of  unknown  length,  to  indicate  a 
finality,  or  summation  of  all  the  terms  that  are  under- 
stood to  intervene,  however  numerous  they  may  be.  As 
though  we  should  say, /or  the  ivorld^  and.  yet — for  ever* 
and  yet  —  denoting  by  the  addition  the  sum,  the  totality 
regarded  as  all  brought  into  the  idea,  or  the  ever-f  resent 
instead  of  the  ever-lasting.  It  would  be  eternity  viewed, 
if  we  can  so  view  it,  as  without  futurition  or  praeterition, 
or,  as  a  quaint  old  lexicographer  has  expressed  it, — "  as 
yet^  and  as  yet,  and  ever  as  yet,  forever,  and  forever 
more,  as  yet."  Boethius  and  the  Schoolmen  come  as 
near  to  it,  perhaps,  as  language  can,  when  they  call  it 
tota  simul  et  interminabilis  existentiae  possessio.f 

And  this  idea  we  get  from  that  sublimest  of  all  sublime 
expressions,  Isaiah,  Ivii,  15.  Eternity,  thus  regarded  as 
something  constant,  is  God's  divelling  place.  "  He  inha- 
bits it."  He  fills  it  all,  even  all  time,  as  he  fills  all 
space,  and  this,  too,  constantly,  indivisibly,  or  all  in  all. 

Luzatto,  the  ablest  of  modern  Jewish  commentators, 
regards  this  word  ^v  as  containing  here  a  space  idea,  which 
he  says  belongs  to  other  Hebrew  words  of  time.     He 

*  Our  Saxon  ever,  like  the  German  Ewig,  originally  denoted 
an  age,  or  eternity,  like  olam.  So  that  the  phrase,  for  ever, 
would  be,  for  the  age. 

t  This  would  seem  to  be  something  like  the  idea  of  Plato 
in  the  Timacus,  37,  E,  where  he  speaks  of  the  «ionian  state 
as  remaining  in  one,  iv  svl,  and  time  as  an  image  of  it 
'^proceeding  hy  ?mmher.^'  One  is  substantial,  the  other 
phenomenal.  One  is  at  rest,  the  other  flowing,  or  seemingly 
60 ;  just  as  the  revolving  mirror  seems  to  set  in  motion  the  im 
movable  landscape  of  which  its  flowing  series  is  the  reflection 


376     THE  TABERNACLE  OF  THE  ETERNITIES. 

thinks  that  it  denotes  the  highest  Heavens  in  space  alti- 
tude, line  hauteur  mflnie,  and  so  it  is  put  for  infinite 
space  itself.  He  gives  a  similar  conception  of  height  to 
olam  when  predicated  of  the  hills.  We  can  see  no 
grounds  for  this,  either  in  the  radical  or  any  secondary 
senses  of  the  words.  It  shows,  however,  that  this  able 
critic  regarded  the  expression  as  denoting  a  most  remark- 
able and  unusual  idea.  Gesenius  would  make  an  ellipsis 
here  of  the  word  heaven,  rendering  t?  '{'s'v,  hahitajis 
(^coelos)  in  eternum.  But  there  is  not  a  particle  of 
authority  for  such  a  course  in  any  similar  usage  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures.  We  have,  however,  something  like 
the  true  idea  presented  in  Psalms,  Ixi,  5, —  only  there  it 
is  by  means  of  the  flowing  rather  than  the  constant 
expression, — "  I  shall  dwell  in  thy  tabernacle  forever," 
or  literally,  ^'  in  thy  tabernacle  of  the  eternities."  The 
verb  rendered  inhabit,  Isaiah,  Ivii,  15,  more  commonly 
means  to  dwell  in  a  tent  or  tabernacle,  but  this  by  its 
contrast  only  heightens  the  idea,  or  gives  us  a  stronger 
impression  of  stability  and  security.  The  author  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  more  than  intimates  that  the 
earthly  Jewish  tabernacle  was  a  type  of  the  highest 
Heavens ;  but  God's  tabernacle  of  the  eternities,  wherein 
He  dwelleth  forever  more,  shall  never  be  taken  do^vn 
like  that  which  "  was  pitched  in  the  wilderness."  Nay 
more,  to  use  the  inspired  language,  it  shall  survive  all 
the  mutations  of  the  physical  worlds,  as  they  are  "  laid 
aside,"  age  after  age,  or  world  after  ivorld,  like  a  worn 

*It  is  the  same  figure  both  in  Isaiah  and  Revelations, — 
•*  When  the  hosts  of  Heaven  shall  grow  old  (tabeseet  omnis 
militia  coelorum,  Vulg.)  and  the  Heavens  themselves  shall 
be  rolled  together  as  a  scroll.''^ 


mit  garment,  (Psalms,  cil,  27,)  or  "rolled  up"  like  an 
ancient  book*  (Isaiah,  xxxiv,  6,  Revelations,  vi,  14,) 
Viien  a  new  page  and  a  new  chapter  has  to  be  brought 
out  in  the  ever  flowing  history  of  time. 

We  find  a  strong  suj^port  for  this  world  sense  of  olam 
when  we  trace  the  same  connection  of  ideas  in  old  lan- 
guages of  a  different  family,  and  very  remote  from  the 
Hebrew.  It  may  be  maintained,  on  strong  philological 
grounds,  that  it  exists  in  the  Saxon  and  the  German. 
When  we  run  up  to  the  primary  notion  of  our  word 
world,  and  its  kindred  Welt,  the  cycle  or  revolution  idea 
is  predominant.  In  the  Saxon  ivorld  this  might  be 
thought  to  be  topical  rather  than  chronological,  but,  in 
fact,  the  space  and  time  ideas  are  closely  related,  and 
both  may  be  embraced  in  the  same  term.  There  is  evi- 
dence, however,  that  the  latter  enters  largely,  and  we 
think,  predominantly  into  the  significance  of  the  root. 
For  such  an  idea,  too,  we  have  the  highest  modern 
authority.  Humboldt,  in  his  Kosmos,  vol.  1,  page  70, 
quotes  with  approbation  the  decision  of  James  Grimm, 
^'  that  the  word  Welt,  and  which  was  iveald  in  the  old 
German,  worold  in  the  old  Saxon,  and  weruld  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  was  a  'period  of  time,  an  age,  (saeculum,) 
rather  than  a  term  used  for  the  world  in  space."  This 
is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  in  the  fragments  of  the  Old 
Gothic  version  of  the  Bible,  made  by  Ulfilas,  the  Gothic 
word  for  ages  is  used  for  world,  just  as  in  the  Hebrew  and 
the  Greek.  Thus,  in  Timothy,  i,  17,  the  expression  '•  to 
the  king  eternal,"  is  rendered,  dhiudana  aive,  "to  the 
king  of  the  worlds  or  ages ;"  aivs  having  the  same  mean- 
ing as  the  Latin  aevum,  the  German  ewig,  and  our  ever. 
Thus,  when  carried  back  to  the  roots,  or  seminal  signifi- 
32* 


378  DESIGN   OF   THE   ARGUMENT. 

cance  of  the  terms,  our  common  translation  of  Hebrews^ 
i,  2,  "  by  whom  he  made  the  ivorlds^^  means  of  itselfj 
and  without  going  te  the  Greek,  the  same  as  the  expres- 
sion "  bj  whom  he  made  the  a^es,"  that  is,  the  great 
days  or  cycles  of  the  chronological  worlds. 

But  what  is  the  design  of  all  this  ?  We  will  endeavor 
to  satisfy  the  reader.  It  is  not  maintained,  or  we  are 
not  required  to  believe,  that  those  who  anciently  used 
these  terms  in  this  manner  had  any  definite  filling  up  of 
the  conception,  or  any  definite  division  of  the  ages,  or  any 
supposed  measure  of  their  duration.  But  this  is  clear. 
They  had  a  language  respecting  them  very  different  from 
our  own,  except  so  far  as  the  modern  usage  has  been 
aflfected  by  a  transfer  into  our  modern  theological  speech 
of  the  old  phraseology.  These  terms  show  that  the 
Hebrews  and  earliest  nations  had  conceptions  of  world- 
times  beyond  what  could  be  included  in  historical  limits. 
Such  conceptions,  too,  we  find  giving  rise  to  reduphca- 
tions  and  pluralities,  and  the  use  of  time  words  as  actual 
names  foi  worlds,  and  terms  of  duration  to  denote  the  very 
substance  or  thing  that  endures,  and  other  forms  such  as 
would  never  have  come  originally  from  our  modern  way 
of  thinking  respecting  creation  and  its  times.  "We  have, 
indeed,  from  our  Scriptural  education,  become  somewhat 
famiHar  with  these  old  modes  of  speech,  or  we  employ 
the  single  epithets  used  in  our  translations  without  much 
thinking  of  the  plural  forms  and  plural  ideas  they  cover 
up,  or  the  scholar  passes  it  over  as  a  mere  accidental 
usus  loquendi,  yet  still  the  fact  remains,  the  fact  to  which 
we  would  chiefly  aim  to  call  attention, —  these  peculiar 
forms  would  never  have  naturally  arisen  from  our  modern 
way  of  thinking  and  conceiving.    We  picture  to  ourselves 


THE  GREATER  THE  EARLIER  SENSE.      379 

the  ante-adamic  eternity  as  a  blank  indivisible  past,  hav- 
ing no  plurality  in  idea,  and,  therefore,  of  course,  sugges* 
ting  none  in  language.  We  think  of  the  future  eternity, 
in  the  same  way,  as  an  undivided*  unit}? ,  an  ever  flowing 
continuousness,  just  as  we  also  image  to  ourselves  the 
whole  universe  above  us,  or  between  us  and  Deity,  as 
occupied  with  one  sparse  order  of  beings,  and  these 
faintly  conceived  of  as  necessary  to  some  kind  of  inter- 
course between  God  and  man.  But  this  could  never 
have  given  rise  to  such  language  as  we  find  in  Hebrews, 
xi,  3,  1  Timothy,  i,  17,  Psalms,  cxlv,  13. 

This,  then,  is  the  real  point,  and  we  think  we  may  say, 
the  strong  position  of  our  argument.  No  doubt  the 
terms  on  which  we  have  been  dwelling  are  frequently 
used  in  lesser  senses.  They  are  employed  sometimes 
for  long  historical  divisions,  and  to  express  a  great  histo- 
rical antiquity;  but  this  comes  easily  from  the  other 
conception.  The  greater  was  the  earlier.  The  lesser  is 
on  the  very  face  of  it  poetical  or  hyperbolical,  and  must 
have  grown  out  of  the  larger  and  more  literal  usage. 
There  is  the  same  tendency  in  respect  to  words  of  space. 
We  give  the  greater  name  of  the  sea  to  the  prairie  and 
the  desert;  we  hyperbolically  characterize  the  ocean 
itself  as  a  world  of  waters.  So  is  it  with  the  old  words 
of  duration.    To  invert  this  order  every  thoughtful  reader 

*  Prof.  Stuart,  in  a  remark  in  reply  to  Hitzig  on  Ecclesi- 
astes,  xii,  i,  says  : — "  Time  divided  is  not  predicable  of  a 
future  state.  Still,  the  Scriptures  speak  everywhere  more 
humane,  or  in  a  popular  way,  in  regard  to  the  future.  Thus 
ages  of  ages  is  a  frequent  designation  of  it."  But  that  such 
was  a  popular  view  among  the  Jews,  and  applied  to  the  past 
as  well  as  to  the  future,  is  all  that  is  nesessary  for  our  argu- 
ment. 


380  APPLICATION   TO  TOM   IN   GENESIS,   I. 

of  the  Scriptures  must  feel  to  be  unnatural.  The  greater 
applications  as  thej  are  made  to  God  and  Christ,  to  the 
"going  forth"  of  the  Logos,  to  the  ages  of  the  Divine 
Kingdom,  and  the  antiquities  of  the  Divine  creative 
Wisdom,  seem  alone  to  fill  up  the  measure  of  the  idea ; 
whilst  the  lesser  use  derives  all  its  rhetorical  and  poetical 
effect  from  the  feeling  the  mind  carries  along  of  these 
fuller  and  higher  senses. 

Now,  in  addition  to  these  considerations,  let  there  be 
borne  in  mind  the  use  which,  it  has  been  shown,  the 
Hebrews  make  of  the  word  yom^  or  day,  for  any  cyclical 
period,  moral  or  physical,  especially  its  remarkable  appli- 
cation to  the  eternal  day  of  the  Divine  Kingdom,  and 
the  reader  is  prepared  for  the  reasonable  and  legiti- 
mate application  the  writer  would  make  of  the  whole 
argument.  It  is  this:  —  Such  a  view  of  the  old  ideas, 
and  of  the  old  language,  does  not  prove  the  truth  of  the 
geological  periods,  or  of  any  particular  duration  of  them, 
or  that  they  were  meant  in  the  Scriptures ;  but  it  does 
show,  that  to  minds  thus  conceiving,  and  to  a  people 
accustomed  to  the  use  of  such  language,  the  interpretar 
tion  of  Genesis  for  which  we  contend,  would  seem  most 
easy  and  natural.  As  viewed  from  such  a  stand-point, 
there  would  seem  nothing  forced  in  giving  to  yom  an 
indefinite  and  long  cyclical  duration. 

The  preceding  investigation  has  been  conducted  chiefly 
on  exegetical  grounds.  We  think,  however,  that  there 
may  be  given  an  a  priori  reason,  if  it  may  be  so  called, 
why  the  time  or  cycHcal  idea  of  the  world,  or  worlds, 
should  develope  itself  sooner  than  the  space  conception, 
and  earlier  show  itself  in  language.     The  latter  would 


A   PRIORI   DEDUCTION    OF   THE   IDEA.  381 

Seem  to  be  more  bounded  by  the  sense.  The  first  view 
of  the  mundus  is  that  of  a  sphere  of  visible  space  shut  in 
by  a  sky  or  soUd  empyrean  —  at  least  so  appearing  to 
the  eye  —  and  this  presents  a  limit,  as  it  were,  to  the 
conceiving  faculty.  The  visible  cosmical  scheme  of  the 
earth  and  heavens  seems  complete.  Imagination  is 
checked,  and  the  mind  rests  in  the  old  view  until  there 
comes  in  the  new  vision,  or  the  new  sense,  we  may  almost 
call  it,  of  the  modern  telescope.  And  now  there  comes, 
too,  a  new  freedom  of  the  conceiving  faculty.  ''  The 
everlasting  gates,  the  doors  of  olam,  are  lifted  up,"  and 
the  soul  awakes  to  a  wider  spatial  view  of  the  Divine 
Kingdom ; 

"  Vivida  vis  animi  pervicit,  et  extra 
Processit  longe  flannnantia  moenia  mundi." 

There  was  an  an  ancient  idea  of  a  plurality  even  of 
space-worlds,  but  this,  as  we  have  seen,  was  more  a  meta- 
physical than  a  physical  speculation.  Hence,  it  never 
became  rooted  in  the  common  thought,  and  thence  in 
the  common  speech.  The  other,  or  chronological  plu- 
rality, was  much  older,  especially  as  exhibited  in  the 
Oriental  mind  ;  and  this  is  shown  by  the  manner  in 
which  it  impressed  itself  on  the  earliest  language  and  its 
earliest  words. 

The  conception,  we  say,  was  most  natural.  Even  in 
our  individual  childhood,  we  never  limit  our  back  view 
of  existence  by  any  dark  line  coeval  with  our  own  birth, 
but  naturally  carry  our  thoughts,  even  before  we  are 
directly  told  of  it,  to  an  antiquity  preceding,  or  to  some- 
thing which  was  before  we  were  born,  and  out  of  which 
we  came.  We  cannot  very  well  think  otherwise.  Our 
conceptions  of  time,  coming  from  the  inner  sense,  are 


382      WORLDS  12^  TIME  BEFORE  WORLDS  IN  SPACE. 

not  thus  limited  or  hindered  by  the  visible,  as  is  the  case 
with  our  first  conceptions  of  outer  space, —  so  much  so, 
indeed,  that  it  even  requires  an  effort  to  overpass  them. 
Thus,  also,  in  the  world's  youth.  Go  back  as  far  in 
antiquity  as  we  may,  there  is  still  discoverable  the  same 
tendency,  as  now,  to  speak  of  the  "olden  times," — of 
the  ages  that  were  before  us,  long  before  us,  and  in  com- 
parison with  which,  as  Bildad  the  Shuhite  says, — "  We 
are  but  of  yesterday."  It  may  be  long  before  men  begin 
to  think  much  of  space  worlds  heijond  this.  But  worlds 
or  ages,  before  this,  and  worlds  after  this,  belong  to  the 
earliest  thought  and  the  earhest  speech.  Either  concep- 
tion—  the  ante  or  ^\q  2?ost  —  is  natural ;  and  the  one  as 
natural  as  the  other.  Thus,  then  it  is,  that  as  we  pass 
upwards  from  our  solar  days  to  years,  and  from  years  to 
generations,  the  conceiving  faculty  feels  the  need  of  some 
greater  measure  which  may  be  regarded  as  immense 
when  compared  with  them,  and  so  there  comes  into  lan- 
guage its  olam,  its  aeons,  its  secula,  its  ages,  and  ages 
of  ages,  its  ever,  its  forever,  and  ever  and  ever,  its 
strange  reduplications,  and  its  still  stranger  world-times 
used  as  names  for  the  very  worlds  themselves. 

And  then  this  is  carried  still  farther.  The  mind  comes 
naturally  in  possession  of  the  idea  that  such  may  be  not 
only  the  order  of  our  conceptions,  but  also  the  great 
order  of  God's  actual  proceeding  in  nature,  as  typified 
by  a  lesser  order  manifested  in  its  lesser  flowing  periods. 
As  our  days  have  their  evening  and  their  morning,  our 
years  their  winter  and  their  spring,  so  these  long  days, 
these  mighty  years,  these  ages  of  ages,  have  their  corre- 
sponding divisions  of  natural  and  supernatural  develop- 
ment.    So  that  the  typical  character,  the  representation 


CHRONOLOGICAL  UNITY   OP  WORLDS.  383 

of  the  greater  by  the  less,  may  be  conceived  of  as  run- 
ning up  from  the  shortest  to  the  longest  cycles  of  the 
natural  worlds,  each  presenting  for  its  dividing  unit  the 
completed  period,  or  whole  cycle  of  the  lower, —  days  of 
years — and  years  of  ages  —  and  ages  of  ages — where 
the  mind  is  wearied,  and  the  failure  of  words  drives  us  to 
those  reduplications  by  which  all  languages,  especially  the 
early  languages,  have  labored  to  carry  on  the  ever  ex- 
tending thought.  This  tendency  of  conceiving  we  carry 
also  into  the  moral  world,  filling  it  too  with  its  ages  and 
cycles,  and  regarding  the  language  as  no  more  figurative, 
or  no  less  literal,  in  the  one  application  than  in  the  other. 

.Instead  of  such  conceptions  being  merely  imaginative, 
are  they  not  rather  in  harmony,  not  only  with  our  more 
extended  knowledge  of  nature  as  derived  from  modern 
science,  but  also  with  those  expanding  views  of  God's 
kingdom  Avhich  grow  out  of  the  closest  study  of  the  Sar 
cred  Scriptures, —  so  that  our  system  is  conceived  of  as 
no  more  cut  off  from  a  chronological  connection  with  the 
whole  previous  and  coming  duration,  than  it  is  from  all 
present  physical  connection  with  cotemporary  systems  in 
space  ?  In  both  ways  the  conception  of  plurality  leads  to 
the  idea  of  unity.  In  other  words,  we  come  to  regard 
the  world,  or  worlds,  as  one  great  olam  chronologically 
and  historic allj^,  as  well  as  one  xoVfxo^  in  their  space  or 
physical  organization. 

And  then,  too,  may  we  not  soberly  ask, — Is  there  not 
something  of  this  sort  laboring,  as  it  were,  for  utterance 
in  many  p^trts  of  the  Bible,  and  especially  in  the  remark- 
able words,  and  still  more  remarkable  reduplications  of 
them,  we  have  been  considering  ?  Is  it  easy  to  avoid  the 
thought,  that  in  these  swelling  climaxes  of  '•  ages  and 


884       INTERPRETATION  OF  PROPHECY. 

ages  of  ages,"  ever  ascending  upward  toward  the  infinite^ 
the  writers  were  travaiUng  with  an  idea,  which,  although 
not  definitely  clear,  and  not  definitely  filled  up  with 
either  a  real  or  mythical  history,  did  nevertheless  repre- 
sent to  their  minds  actual  ante-terrene  and  ante-adamic 
periods,  occupied,  in  some  way,  with  God's  works  both 
spiritual  and  natural  ?  Can  we  believe  that  such  language 
could  have  come  from  the  conception  of  a  blank  duration 
like  the  metaphysical  notion  of  time,  or  of  solitary  ages 
of  the  Divine  Existence,  or  still  less  that  such  a  barren 
idea — barren  we  call  it,  notwithstanding  it  is  the  favorite 
notion  of  many  modern  theologians  —  could  ever  have 
given  rise  to  such  terms  of  division  and  plurality  ? 

And  this  is  a  mode  of  conceiving  which  carries  us, 
not  only  back  to  the  past,  but  forward  to  the  future. 
We  have  already  alluded  to  the  exceeding  inconsistency? 
as  well  as  narrow  philology,  of  those  who  would  expand 
prophecy  indefinitely,  whilst  they  shut  up  to  the  closest 
limits  the  no  less  important  and  no  less  mysterious  field 
of  creation.  We  would  only  say,  here,  that  it  is  the 
same  effect  whether  our  thoughts  flow  onwards  to  periods 
or  olams  to  come,  or  back  to  those  that  are  past.  The 
word  day  becomes  a  most  important  term  in  both  depart- 
ments of  exegesis,  and  the  feeling  which  acquits  the 
lengthened  interpretation  of  inconsistency  in  the  one 
case,  ought  to  have  an  equal  effect  in  the  other.  Such 
days  are  alike  extraordinary,  whether  predicated  of  the 
great  ages  that  have  fulfilled  their  generation,  or  of  the 
great  ages  that  are  yet  to  be  born.  As  we  get  away 
from  our  present,  whether  by  receding  or  advancing, 
there  comes  upon  us  from  either  quarter  the  impression 
of  the  vast,  the  remote,  the  immeasurable.     Ordinary 


LONG  PERIODS   OF   THE   MORAL   WORLDS.  385 

conceptions  of  time  will  not  do.  Ordinary  terms  swell 
out  to  a  higher  sense.  And  so  we  get  the  idea, —  and 
a  most  natural  one  it  is, — that  the  "  latter  day,"  the 
predicted  times  of  glory  on  our  earth,  will  be  of  immense 
duration,  measured  not  by  common  years,  but  having 
rather  a  millennium  for  its  measuring  unit,  as  if  employed 
to  measure  a  milUo-millennial  cycle. 

There  is  another  analogy  that  ought  to  force  itself 
upon  the  attention  of  those  interpreters  who  would  con- 
fine the  creative  works  of  God  within  the  narrowest 
limits.  How  slow,  how  gradual,  have  been  the  divine 
dealings  in  the  moral  world !  How  many  apparently 
baiTcn  periods  in  time,  like  the  apparently  barren  fields 
in  space !  There  are  days  and  cycles  here,  but  how 
slowly  they  come  about !  How  impatient  we  are  with 
history  as  we  read  of  their  tardy  accomplishment !  So 
that  here,  too,  we  are  most  impressively  reminded  of  the 
declaration  of  the  Apostle,  that  "  the  Lord  is  not  slow  as 
men  count  sloivness,^^  and  "that  with  Him  a  thousand 
years  are  as  one  day."  He  could  have  created  a  per- 
fected Church,  as  he  could  have  created  a  finished 
world,  by  an  instantaneous  exertion  of  his  omnipotent 
grace.  At  least  so  it  would  seem  to  our  reason.  But 
he  has  chosen  the  other  method ;  and  in  the  one  case,  as 
in  the  other, — "  Who  shall  touch  His  hand,  or  say  unto 
Him— what  doest  Thou?" 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 


OLDEST  DIVINE   NAMES   IN   GENESIS,  EL   OLAM,   EL 

SHADDAI,   EL   ELIOUN. 

OTHER  HEBREW   WORDS    OF   DURATION. 

The   divine  names   in  Genesis  connected  with  the  three  aspects  of 

THE     WORLD. — SpACE,    TIME,    DEGREE. — POWEE,    PROVIDENCE,    GLORY. — PrIMI" 
TIVE    simplicity    FAVORABLE     TO   DEVOUT     ELEVATION  OF     THOUGHT. — OtHEB 

Hebrew  words  of  time. — Heled. — Toleda  or  race  — Dor  or  generation. 
— Ancient  cyclical  ideas. — Aristotle  and  St.  James. 

From  the  word  we  have  been  so  fully  examining  comes 
one  of  the  oldest  of  the  Divine  Names.  We  have 
taVSsVK,  El  01am,  The  Eternal  God.  It  occurs  in 
Genesis  in  striking  connection  with  two  others,  and  the 
three  together  strongly  suggest  what  we  have  called  the 
three  great  aspects  of  the  world.  They  are  ''^w  Vn,  El 
Shaddai,  and  -^S^^v  Vn,  El  Elioun,  God  Almighty,  as  it  is 
commonly  rendered,  and  God  Most  High.  El  Shaddai 
is  rendered  in  the  LXX,  havhg,  and  in  the  Vidgate,  Deus 
Sufficiens.  Thus  taken,  it  would  naturally  be  referred 
to  the  spatial  or  more  directly  physical  or  dynamical 
aspect  of  the  world,  as  El  Elioun  suggests  what  we  have 
called  the  altitudinal  idea,  or  that  which  takes  in  ascend- 
ing orders  of  being.  All  these  most  significant  epithets 
occur  in  Genesis,  (see  especially  Genesis,  xxi,  34,  xiv, 
19,  xvii,  1,)  and  may  be  rendered  the  All  Pervading, 
the  All  Transcending,  The  Eternal  God, — K^aritfToj — 
'T+itfToj — A/wvjoj — representative  of  space,  height,  eter- 
nity— power,  providence,  glory.     Is  it  said  that  such 


THE  INFINITE   SUGGESTED   BY  THE  FINITE.       387 

<;onceptions  are  beyond  that  simple  primitive  age,  we 
might  take  issue  on  the  main  assertion,  or  waiving  that, 
might  contend  that  the  Bible  was  given  for  all  ages — 
that  even  its  earliest  parts  contain  the  germs  of  ideas 
w^hich  all  the  progress  of  the  human  race  can  never  fully 
develope,  much  less  render  obsolete.  There  is,  indeed, 
a  contrast  between  these  most  suggestive  epithets  and 
what  some  would  call  the  anthropomorphism  of  Genesis, 
yet  not  a  contrast  of  inconsistency.  The  same  feeling 
which  represents  God  as  coming  down  to  talk  with  the 
children  of  men,  and  see  "  how  they  are  doing,"  (Gene- 
sis, xi,  6,)  does  also  draw  out  the  soul  to  think  on  the 
greatness  of  such  a  condescending  heavenly  friend. 
This  must  have  been  peculiarly  the  case  with  those  whom 
Paul  describes  as  feeling  that  "  they  Avere  pilgrims  and 
sojourners  upon  earth,  and  who  sought  a  city  which  had 
foundations."  With  these  primitive  men,  the  most  finite, 
the  most  transient  deeds  of  earth,  are  connected  with  the 
thoughts  of  the  eternal  and  the  infinite.  "  And  Abra- 
ham planted  a  grove  in  Beer  Sheba,  and  he  called  upon 
the  name  Jehovah  El  01am,  the  Lord,  the  Eternal  God." 
These  names  came  from  no  philosophical  speculation, 
but  from  the  very  sense  of  the  human  weakness  and 
finity.  The  true  consciousness  of  lowliness  gives  by  con- 
trast the  highest  view  of  Deity.  This  is  the  enigma  of 
the  Bible,  which  philosophy,  in  its  pride,  cannot  compre- 
hend. If  one  term  of  the  contrast  be  wanting,  it  loses 
all  its  emotional  or  moral  nature.  Hence,  with  the  mere 
man  of  science,  the  Divine  Idea  presents  only  a  mathe- 
matical or  numerical  greatness, — in  other  words,  a  naked 
and  cold  abstraction.  To  the  former  state  of  soul,  low- 
liness and  loftiness  suggest  each  other,  and  the  apparent 


388  THE  LOWLY   SUGGESTS   THE  HIGH. 

anthropopathism  is  grounded  on  the  purest  faith  express- 
ing itself  in  such  language  as  we  find  in  the  old  90th 
Psalm,  — 

"  From  age  to  age.  Eternal  God, 
Thou  art  our  Rest,  our  sure  Abode." 

The  thought  comes  directly  from  the  consideration  of 
our  desolate  orphanage,  or  the  lonely  condition  of  rational 
man  regarded  as  a  mere  child  of  nature,  so  very  different 
from  her  other  offspring,  and  yet  so  very  poor  if  he  have 
no  other  portion  than  nature  can  afford  him.  Our  tran- 
sient pilgrim  state  renders  inexpressibly  precious  the  idea 
of  the  Divine  permanence.  The  more  lowly  the  valley 
from  which  we  gaze  upward,  the  loftier  and  more  serene 
appear  the  heavens ;  so,  also,  the  very  lowliness  of  our 
earthly  condition  may  give  a  grandeur,  and  an  elevation 
to  the  conception  of  Deity  which  no  science  or  philosophy 
could  ever  impart. 

"  From  sin  and  dust  to  Thee  we  cry. 
The  Great,  the  Holy,  and  the  High." 

"  Art  Thou  not  from  everlasting,  0  Lord,  my  God,  my 
Holy  One  ?  We  shall  not  die."*  Take  all  philosophy 
from  Plato  to  Cousin,  and  where  do  we  find  any  ideas  of 
God  more  elevated  than  those  that  are  associated  with 
these  grand  epithets  so  frequent  in  the  Old  Testament, 
and  most  frequent  in  its  oldest  parts?  What  is  there 
which  carries  us  farther  towards  the  infinite  in  all  direc- 
tions ?  And  yet,  it  should  be  observed,  with  what 
unshrinking  boldness  the  Bible  writers  connect  with 
them  the  ideas  of  the  local  and  the  finite.  This  is,  in 
fact,  one  chief  peculiarity  of  the  Scriptures.  The  Divine 
Being  is  very  near,  and  yet  very  far  off.     The  God  of 

*  Habakkuk,  i  12. 


OTHER  HEBREW  WORDS   OF  TIME.      TOLEDA.      389 

the  universe  is  at  the  same  time  regarded  as  a  patrial 
Deity,  the  "  God  of  his  people."  He  who  "  fills  heaven 
and  earth,"  is  spoken  of  as  dwelling  in  consecrated  local- 
ities. The  Governor  of  all  worlds  in  time  and  space,  the 
Most  High,  the  Almighty,  the  Everlasting,  is  at  the  same 
time  the  God  of  Mamre,  of  Bethel,  of  Peniel.  El  01am, 
El  Shaddai,  El  EUoun,  is  at  the  same  time  El  Elohe  Israel. 

There  are  a  few  other  chronological  terms  in  the  He- 
brew to  which  we  would  devote  a  brief  space,  so  far  as 
they  may  be  regarded  as  of  a  kindred  nature  with  olam, 
or  employed  for  the  larger  periods.  Some  of  them  may 
be  viewed  as  denoting  states  of  being  rather  than  times, 
or  some  peculiar  character  of  such  states  aside  from  the 
idea  of  duration.  Thus  the  word  "i^h  (heled)  is  used  for 
time  regarded  as  fleeting  and  transient,  without  refer- 
ence to  any  notion  of  extent.  Hence,  from  this  flowing 
idea,  or  character  of  transitoriness,  it  is  put  for  this  pre- 
sent life,  to  denote  its  frailty ;  and  so  it  comes  to  be  used 
for  the  world,  or  human  life  in  this  particular  aspect. 
The  reader  is  referred  to  Psalms,  xxxix,  6,  Ixxxix,  48, 
xlix,  2,  Job,  xi,  17,  and  especially  to  Psalm  xvii,  14, 
where  "  men  of  Jieled^^  is  very  well  rendered  "  men  of 
the  world."  Their  state  is  put  in  contrast  with  the 
security  of  those  who  abide  in  the  Divine  Tabernacle. 
There  is  something  of  the  same  use  of  the  Greek  xo'CfAos 
in  the  New  Testament ;  as  1  Corinthians,  vii,  31, — *'  The 
fashion  of  the  world  passeth  away."  Compare,  also, 
1  John,  ii,  17. 

Another  time  word  is  "7^.^,  or  generation,  which  has 
already  been  considered  in  its  radical  significance  of 
nature,  or  birth.     It  has,  also,  a  time  sense  like  the 

33* 


390  DOR,    OR   GENERATION. 

Greek  ys\jza,  and  our  word  generation.  Thus  taken,  it 
may  be  also  used  like  olam  and  ctiwv,  to  denote  the  thin^ 
itself,  or  the  being  of  that  of  which  it  expresses  the  nature 
or  duration.  As  in  Genesis,  ii,  4,  "  The  generations  of 
the  heavens  and  the  earth,"  are  nearly  equivalent  to  the 
heavens  and  earth  themselves,  or  the  worlds  created. 
So  close  is  the  resemblance,  that  the  Hebrew  word  would 
be  no  bad  translation  of  the  Greek  rendered  ages  or 
worlds^  Hebrews,  xi,  3  ;  and  it  may  be,  that  in  this,  as 
well  as  in  Hebrews,  i,  2,  the  New  Testament  writer  had 
in  view  this  very  language  of  Moses  wherein  he  calls 
creation  generations^  births^  or  ages. 

One  of  our  best  philologists*  regards  the  Saxon  yldo, 
yldii^  as  the  same  with  the  Hebrew  rJ^V')^,  from  the  She- 
mitic  root  yld,  Arabic  wld.  Like  the  Hebrew,  it  signi- 
fies, not  only  birth,  or  generation,  but  also  a  period  of 
time,  age,  aetas,  seculmn,  aevum.  Hence  the  English 
eald,  eld,  old,  and  the  German  alt.  Thus,  in  Saxon,  as 
well  as  in  the  Hebrew,  the  "  generations  or  the  genesis 
of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,"  as  we  have  it  in  Genesis, 
ii,  4,  would  be  "  the  ages  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 
Through  whatever  route  we  travel  up  with  these  old 
roots,  we  find  them  terminating  in  the  same  early  concep- 
tions. And  so  in  the  Gothic  version  of  Ulfilas  we  find 
this  same  Saxon  root  used  for  ages,  and  to  express  eter- 
nity,—  in  aldins  aive,  1  Timothy,  i,  17. 

Another  and  still  more  common  word  for  generation, 
is  the  Hebrew,  "ri^,  dor.  It  is  less  than  olam,  though 
still  used  for  indefinite  periods  exceeding  ordinary  solar 
movements,  or  common  multiples  of  them.  It  is  the 
term  of  measurement  of  the  life-time  of  the  human  9'ace, 

*  Boeworth,  author  of  the  Anglo  Saxon  Dictionai'y. 


SYRIAC   WORD   FOR  MORNING.  391 

as  solar  years  measure  the  individual  life,  and  clams,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  in  like  manner  appHed  to  the  dura- 
tion of  the  divine  kingdom.  A  striking  passage  to  show 
the  difference  is  Ecclesiastes,  i,  3, —  "  G-eneration  cometh 
and  generation  goeth,  but  the  earth  abideth  £=jVi»V,  for 
its  olam.^^  The  word,  however,  is  sometimes  used  to 
denote  a  greater  flow  of  duration,  and  thus  approaches 
the  meaning  of  olam.  It  is  in  this  manner  applied  to 
God's  existence*  in  those  affecting  passages  where  it  is 
put  in  contrast  with  the  frail  and  transient  condition  of 
our  earthly  human  life.  To  make  this  contrast  more 
effective,  the  lesser  term  generation  is  used  instead  of 
the  greater  term  olam,  which  would  carry  the  compari- 
son too  far  off.  Thus,  Psalms,  cii,  24, —  "  But  thy  years 
are  through  all  generations"  —  dor  dorim,  or  generations 
of  generations.  In  the  Syriac  this  compound  phrase  has 
become  one  word,  dor-dorin,  and  thus  constructed  is  more 
commonly  used  as  one  of  the  immeasurable.units  of  dura- 
tion. In  this  word,  the  cyclical  idea  is  very  prominent. 
The  root  signifies  to  go  round  in  a  circle,  circumire. 
This  it  has,  also,  in  the  cognate  tongues.  Hence,  the 
Arabic  word  for  time,  long  time,  seculmn,  age,  perpetuity. 
Hence,  also,  perhaps,  the  Greek,  ^^iv. 

There  is  the  same  idea  in  the  Hebrew-Syriac  word  for 
morning,  («"iS2,)  which  is  from  a  root  having  the  same 
primary  sense,  gyrare,  in  orhem  ire.  The  morning  is 
that  which  comes  again  in  its  cyclical  revelation.  Hence 
the  exceeding  beauty  of  that  passage.  Lamentations,  iii, 

*  So,  also,  7cv£a  is  used  with  a)wv,  to  denote  the  greater 
periods,  Ephesians,  iii,  21  ;  s'lg  'Kadag  ras  ysvsas  tou  alwvog 
Twv  ul'^j\uv, —  "  For  all  the  generations  of  the  world  of  worlds." 
Compare,  also,  Colossians,  i,  26. 


392  THE  ANCIENT  CYCLICAL  IDEA. 

23, —  "Thy  mercies  are  new  every  morning,"  or,  as  the 
Syriac  version  renders  it, —  "  in  the  renewal  of  the  morn- 
ing great  is  thy  faithfulness."  There  may  be  no  great 
critical  importance  in  such  terms  taken  singly  ;  but  they 
show  how  extensively  this  periodical  idea  prevails  in  all 
the  Hebrew  words  of  time,  and  that  those,  therefore,  who 
regard  such  periodicity  as  the  essential  idea  of  yom  in 
Genesis  adopt  a  mode  of  interpretation  the  most  in  har- 
mony with  the  whole  genius  of  the  Sacred  Language. 

This  cyclical  tendency,  or  mode  of  conceiving  the 
movements  of  nature,  of  all  natures  whether  great  or 
small,  as  taking  place  in  a  circle,  or  revolution,  is  cer- 
tainly a  marked  feature  of  the  ancient  mind.  Many  and 
apposite  illustrations  could  be  given  from  the  Greek 
poets.  In  a  fragment  of  one  of  his  tragedies,  Euripides 
styles  nature  fi^M-Z^oj,  a  whirl  or  rhomh.  Is  it,  fanciful 
to  trace  the  same  thought  ui  the  wheel,  and  wheels  within 
wheels,  of  Ezekiel's  glorious  vision  ?  Such  cychcal  ideas 
may  have  come  from  the  optical  appearance  of  the  rolUng 
world  in  space,  and  some  have  interpreted  Ezekiel's  con- 
centric and  bisecting  orbs  (chapter  i,  17),  or  his  "wheel 
within  a  wheel,"  of  the  armillary  sphere  represented  by 
the  crossing  of  the  great  meridional  and  equatorial  cir- 
cles. But  the  ideas  are  harmonious,  and  we  may  regard 
the  space  and  time  views  as  both  mingled  in  the  same 
conception,  and  as  coming  from  observations,  or  a  priori 
suggestions  equally  natural  and  obvious.  The  time  revo- 
lutions of  nature  in  the  days,  the  moons,  the  years,  and 
in  the  returns  of  similar  celestial  phenomena  in  the  greater 
astronomical  cycles,  would  call  out  the  periodical  belief 
as  well  as  the  observed  orbits  in  space. 


PERIODS  IN   THE   HUMAN   ORGANIZATION.  393 

This  great  feature  in  tlie  larger  nature  once  noted, 
there  would  be  a  tendency  to  seek  for  it  in  the  lesser 
organizations.  It  would  be  assumed  to  exist  though 
hidden  from  immediate  or  optical  observation.  Or  it 
might  even  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  a  priori  belief  com- 
ing directly  from  the  very  idea  of  a  nature  as  something 
which  reproduces  itself,  and,  therefore,  must  go  round  in 
a  circle.  Hence  the  reason  would  find  such  cycles,  or 
think  it  found  them,  where  the  sense  cannot  go.  In  this 
way  we  account  for  the  same  cycHcal  language  in  respect 
to  the  human  organization,  or  man  regarded  as  a  sort  of 
micro-cosm,  or  kosmos  in  miniature.  This  was  long 
before  science  had  actually  dissected  him,  and  found  the 
wondrous  i^eriods  that  are  now  known  to  exist  in  the 
human  system.  The  human  kosmos,  too,  had  its  cycles,  • 
or  wheels  of  revolution,  and  to  this  idea  must  we  refer 
those  singular  metaphors  we  find,  Ecclesiastes,  xii,  6,  7, 
of  the  "  silver  cord,"  and  "  the  wheel  broken  at  the  cis- 
tern." Some  might  almost  think  that  Koheleth  had  a 
knowledge  of  the  spinal  marrow,  and  of  the  circulation 
of  the  blood.  Without,  however,  regarding  him  as  hav- 
ing thus  anticipated  Harvey's  great  discovery,  sober 
criticism  will  at  least  allow  us  to  refer  it  to  this  ancient 
idea  of  a  periodical  revolution,  or  revolutions,  of  some 
kmd,  in  the  human  system, —  an  idea  not  coming  from 
observation,  or  experience,  so  much  as  from  this  universal 
analogy. 

To  this  may  be  referred  the  'r^o'x^s  t^js  /svsVsw^  of 
James,  iii,  6,  "  the  course  of  nature,"  as  it  has  been 
rendered,  or  literally,  "  the  wheel  of  generation."  Dr. 
Adam  Clarke's  opinion  that  it  refers  to  "  the  penal  wheel 
of  the  Greeks,"  is  without  the  shadow  of  authority.     The 


394  ARISTOTLE   AND    ST.    JAMES. 

best  aid  to  the  interpretation  of  James,  iii,  6,  may  be 
found  in  Aristotle's  I*hysica,  where  the  origin  of  the  lan- 
guage, and  the  philosophy  of  it  are  thus  set  forth, —  "  It 
is  because,"  he  says,  "  of  the  accustomed  mode  of  speech ; 
for  men  are  wont  to  say  that  all  human  things  are  a  cir- 
cle, xujcXov  Tjva,  and  in  the  same  way  they  speak  of  all 
things  that  have  a  physical  genesis.  The  reason  of  this 
is,  that  all  things  are  measured  hy  time^  and  have  their 
beginnmgs  and  their  end,  as  it  were,  in  a  period  ;  for 
time  itself  seems  to  he  a  ivheel  or  cycle.^^  Aristot.  Pliys. 
Auso.  Lib.  iv,  14,  5. 

It  is  this  idea,  and  this  kind  of  language  in  the  old 
philosophers,  which  gives  them,  in  some  of  their  physical 
speculations,  the  appearance  of  having  anticipated  cer- 
tain discoveries  of  modern  science.  It  is,  however,  only 
this  vaticinating  a  priori  conception  which  before  obser- 
vation, and  without  observation,  expects  to  find  order 
and  harmony  in  nature,  or  a  regular  course  of  events 
whose  mutual  interdependences  and  reproductions  find 
their  best  outward  expression  in  such  idea. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 


HEBREW  IDEAS   OF   NATURAL   LAW. 

Idba  of  law  in  the  Old  Testament.— Illustrations  from  Job,  thh 
Psalms,  and  the  Prophet?. — Supposed  ignorance  op  Bible  writers. — 
The  "foundations  of  the  earth." — The  poetical  as  distinguished  from 
the  phenomenal  style. — Comparison  of  the  Mosaic  account  with  Job, 

XXXVIII,  AND    its    SUBLI31E  INTERROGATORIES.— HaS    SCIENCE   YET  ANSWERED 
THEM  ? 

It  may  seem  a  bold  assertion,  and  yet  we  will  hazard  it, 
that  no  where  do  we  find  the  ideas  of  law  and  order  more 
distinctly  set  forth  than  in  the  Old  Testament.  We 
mean  natural  law  and  order.  It  is,  indeed,  never  parted 
from  the  Divine  Personality,  but  it  is  true  law  notwith- 
standing. It  may  not  be  scientifically  known  in  its 
linked  details,  yet  still  there  is  the  unmistakable  recog- 
nition of  an  order  of  things^  settled,  firm,  and  universal. 
Long  before  the  name  of  the  Newtonian  gravitation  was 
even  heard  of,  the  Psalmist  had  said, — "For  ever,  0 
Lord,  thy  word  is  settled  in  the  heavens ;"  "  all  things 
stand  according  to  thine  ordinances."  "  He  maketh 
peace,"  says  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Job,  '^  ^oeace  in 
his  high  places," — '' concordiam  in  suhlimihus  suis. 
The  Hebrew  ta^Vto,  denotes  perfection  and  integrity/,  but 
in  its  most  usual  sense  of  peace,  what  is  it,  as  used  in 
such  connection,  but  another  name  for  order,  fitness, 
attraction,  agreement,  constancy,  aijd  law  ? 

He  maketh  "concord  in  suhlimihus  suis^^ — among 
the  heavenly  hosts  or  orbs.  There  may  be  found,  also, 
the  same  idea  in  respect  to  the  lower  departments  of 


896  HEBREW  IDEAS   OF  LAW  AND   NATURE. 

nature.  We  quote  again  from  the  same  rich  store-house 
of  ancient  wisdom,  that  grand  old  Book  of  Job,^"  When 
He  appointed  its  weight  for  the  winds,  when  He  regu- 
lated the  waters  bj  measure,  when  He  made  a  law  for 
the  rain,  and  a  way  for  the  flashes  of  the  thunder  voice," 
—or,  as  quaint  old  Tjndale  has  it,  "  When  He  sett  the 
rajne  in  order  and  gave  the  mightie  floudes  a  lawe." 
We  have  alluded  before  to  the  name  of  covenant  as  being 
sometimes  given  to  God's  methods  of  proceeding  in  the 
natural  worlds  ;  as  in  Jeremiah,  xxxiii,  19,  there  is  men- 
tion of  his  "  covenant  of  the  day  and  his  covenant  of  the 
night."  It  is  applied  there  to  inanimate  things ;  but  this 
is  just  the  transfer  we  make  of  our  word  law  from  rational 
and  moral  to  physical  agencies.  Thus  the  idea  of  law, 
of  natural  law,  is  clearly  in  the  Bible  ;  but  it  never  sinks 
into  that  inane  conception  of  a  law  without  a  lawgiver. 
Neither  does  it  ever  lose  its  essential  idea  of  ordinance 
or  decree. 

There  is  often  a  great  deal  of  shallow  criticism  on  the 
erroneous  conceptions  of  the  Bible  writers  respecting 
"the  foundations  of  the  earth,"  and  their  "  extreme  igno- 
rance of  its  true  form."  But  aside  from  the  poetical 
explanation,  it  is  not  true  that  they  were  thus  ignorant. 
It  might  be  shown,  and  we  have  shown  elsewhere,  that 
the  idea  of  the  earth's  roundness  was  a  very  ancient  one. 
It  would  come  most  naturally  to  the  mind  of  every  think- 
ing man,  who  saw  the  sun  go  down  in  the  west  and  rise 
again  in  the  east,  that  the  earth  must  rest  in  space  with 
space  all  round  and  ^^ound  it  in  every  direction.  So  far 
it  would  be  almost  a  matter  for  the  senses.  Hence  no- 
thing could  be  more  natural  than  the  idea  expressed  in 
Job,  xxvi,  7,  and  in  which  all  the  old  versions  concur, — 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THE  EARTH.      39T 

'"'  He  stretcheth  out  the  North  over  the  empty  space," — 
evidently  referring  to  the  north  pole  of  the  visible  world 
which  seems  to  stand  over  a  void, — "  and  hangeth 
the  earth  upon  nothing," — Qui  extendit  aquilonem 
super  vacuum,  et  appendit  terram  super  nihilum.  But 
in  respect  to  the  real  "  foundations  of  the  earth,"  the 
Bible  holds  a  truer  language  than  science  itself.  The 
ultimate  foundations,  or  supports,  of  the  earth  are  God's 
upholding  power.  We  may  smile  at  the  old  quackish 
story  of  the  earth's  standing  on  the  back  of  the  elephant, 
and  the  elephant  standing  on  the  head  of  the  tortoise, 
etc.,  etc.,  but  in  our  gravities,  our  magnetisms,  our  series 
of  fluids  ever  requiring  other  fluids  to  explain  their  mo- 
tions, we  have  only  introduced  a  new  set  of  modern  equi- 
valents. They  may  be  very  convenient  as  terms  denot- 
ing sequences  of  phenomena  ;  but  they  come  no  nearer 
to  the  primal  fact  than  the  wildest  Hindoo  or  Scandina- 
vian myth.  And  yet  the  earth  has  a  supporting  power, 
though  science  by  her  groping  may  never  get  down  to  it. 

"Earth  \vith  its  caverns  dark  and  deep, 
Lies  in  His  mighty  hand." 

Why  is  Watts  so  sublime  here  ?  It  is  because  he  so 
closely  follows  the  inspired  thought  and  language.  "  In 
His  hand  are  all  the  deep  places  of  the  earth  and  the 
strength*  of  the  hills  is  His  also." 

"  'T  is  by  Thy  strength  the  mountains  stand." 

What  can  geology  give  us  for  such  ideas  as  these  ?  How 
will  its  dry  technics  of  strata  and  formations  make  to  us 
any  compensation  for  the  loss  of  the  Scriptural  concep- 

*  The  Hebrew  word  here  denotes  the  strength  required  to 
bear  up  the  heaviest  loads, — from  a  root  signifying  to  be 
weary.     It  is  here  applied  authropopathically  to  Deity. 

34 


898  THE   POETICAL   STYLE. 

tlons  ?  There  is  no  desire  to  underrate  the  language  of 
science,  but  to  exchange  our  Bible  for  it  —  we  mean 
now  not  simplj  its  moral  views,  but  its  grand  physical 
teachings  in  respect  to  the  origin  and  sustaining  power 
of  the  world  —  would  be,  indeed,  like  prefering  the  chaff 
to  the  wheat,  the  dry  bones  to  the  breath  of  life.  We 
might  as  well  take  a  dx~dy  computation  in  dynamical 
astronomy  as  a  substitute  for  the  glorious  old  heavens 
themselves.  But  this  is  all  a  play  upon  words,  our  scien- 
tific lecturer  may  say.  It  is  not  what  ive  mean  when  we 
speak  of  the  foundations  of  the  earth,  and  the  ancient 
ignorance  respecting  them.  Neither,  on  the  other  hand, 
may  it  be  replied,  does  the  Bible  mean  what  you,  in 
your  little  science,  and  still  less  Biblical  learning,  would 
ascribe  to  it.  Your  stale  caricatures  belong  neither  to 
its  prose  nor  its  poetry.  They  are  alike  alien  to  its 
letter  and  its  spirit. 

In  one  of  the  earliest  chapters  of  this  work,  there  was 
an  allusion  to  the  distinction  between  phenomenal  and 
poetical  language,  and  a  promise  of  further  explanation. 
The  Mosaic  account,  it  was  said,  was  simple  prose. 
Wherein,  then,  does  the  poetical  style  differ  from  it  ? 
We  will  endeavor  to  answer  briefly.  Phenomenal  lan- 
guage, which  exists  almost  every  where,  even  in  the  roots 
of  scientific  and  philosophical  terms,  is  simply  making 
use  of  those  phenomena  which  come  primarily  and  directly 
from  the  sense  without  any  effort  of  the  imagination.  It 
is  the  employing  of  first  appearances  for  the  construction 
of  the  first  names.  They  may  be  called  the  inner  lan- 
guage or  vehicle  of  the  thought,  and  are  designed  only 
for  clearness  of  idea  and  vividness  of  impression.  In 
poetry,  on  the  other  hand,  the  object  is  strong  emotion. 


POETRY  MAKES   ITS  IMAGES.  899 

in  connection  with  the  thought.  The  design  in  the  one 
case  is  knowledge,  in  the  other  feeling.  Hence  poetry 
does  not  necessarily  take  the  .primary  images  which  the 
sense  at  once  presents,  but  goes  in  search  of  others  that 
may  be  in  some  measure  hidden  (until  brought  out  by 
the  active  imagination)  and  employs  them  for  this  further 
purpose.  The  imagery  in  the  beginning  of  Genesis  is 
all  of  the  first  kind, — ''  such  as  the  divicUngs,  the  gath- 
erings of  the  waters,  tjie  spreading  out  of  the  firmament, 
the  hirth  of  plants,  or  their  out-goings  from  the  earth. 
These  appearances  are  all  actually  in  nature,  not  made 
nor  imagined.  But  poetry  is  not  content  with  this.  She 
makes  her  images,  as  her  name  ('^roj'ria'j^)  implies.  She 
brings  us,  too,  not  mere  single  images,  but  compound 
similes  both  express  and  imphed.  She  deals  not  merely 
in  direct  resemblances,  but  also  in  analogies.  '  Poetry 
compares  creation  to  the  building  of  a  temple,  or  the 
erection  of  a  tabernacle,  and  hence  the  imagination 
selects  other  pictures  that  may  suit  the  chosen  compari- 
son. To  this  end  it  has  its  walls,  its  curtains,  its  gates, 
its  foundations,  its  corner  stones.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
distinguish  the  two  styles,  even  where  there  is  no  out- 
ward dress  of  verse  or  rythm ;  but  in  order  to  make  it 
more  clear,  let  us  examine  the  Thirty-eighth  Chapter  of 
Job,  which  may  almost  be  called  a  poetical  parallel  to 
the  prose  of  the  Mosaic  account. 

The  First  of  Genesis  is  evidently  in  view,  and  some 
marks  of  its  order  may  be  traced.  God  is  represented 
as  speaking  out  of  the  thunder  cloud,  and  challenging 
Job's  ignorance  in  a  series  of  questions  clothed  in  the 
highest  garb  of  poetry  —  such  poetry  as  we  find  nowhere 
else  in  all  the  remains  of  classical  antiquity.     "  Where 


400    COMPARISON  OF  JOB,  XXXVIII,  AND  GENESIS,  I. 

wast  thou  when  I  laid  the  foundations  of  the  earth  ?  Who 
appointed  its  measures  ?  Who  stretched  the  line  upon  it  ? 
Upon  what  are  its  sockets  sunk?  Who  hath  laid  the 
corner  stone  thereof?"  Here  the  imagination  is  directed 
to  the  building  of  a  temple ;  and  then  there  is  brought 
in  that  other  poetical  imagery,  than  which  nothing  can 
be  conceived  more  glorious,  or  more  animating,  although 
drawn  from  one  of  the  customs  of  the  earth :  "  When  the 
Stars  of  the  Morning  sang  together,  and  all  the  Sons  of 
God  shouted  for  joy."  Our  view  in  respect  to  these 
Stars  of  the  World's  earliest  morning  has  been  already 
given.  The  metaphor  itself  is  derived  from  the  songs 
and  processions  which  in  all  ages  have  been  used  at  the 
commencement,  or  laying  the  corner  stone  of  great  public 
buildings.  As  in  Zachariah,  iv,  7, — "  They  shall  bring 
forth  the  corner-stone  with  shoutings,  grace,  grace,  unto 
it ;"  or,  Ezra,  iii,  10,  where  it  is  said,  "  They  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  the  temple  of  the  Lord,  and  the  priests  stood 
with  their  trumpets,  and  the  Sons  of  xlsaph  with  their  loud 
sounding  cymbals,  and  all  the  people  sang  aloud  in  great 
triumph,  and  the  voice  was  heard  afar."  And  so  the  Hosts 
of  Heaven  tone  jubilee  when  earth's  corner-stone  was  laid. 
Those  eldest  born  of  creation,  the  Sons  of  the  Morning, 
are  out  upon  their  early  watch  for  the  dawning  of  that 
glorious  first  day  of  earth,  or  the  beginning  of  this  new 
temple  in  which  there  are  to  be  such  rich  displays  of  the 
divine  glory.  But  we  would  not  spoil  the  picture  by 
dwelling  upon  it,  or  attempting  to  paint  it.  jSTothing  can 
surpass  its  grandeur  and  its  beauty  as  it  stands  upon  the 
pages  of  the  Bible. 

But   let   us   proceed  with  our  interpretation  of  the 
poetical  imagery  in  Job,  xxxviii, —  ^*  Who  shut  up  the 


THE   BIRTH   OF  THE   EARTH.  401 

sea  with  doors  when  it  rushed  forth  and  came  out  of  the 
womb  ?  When  I  made  the  cloud  its  garment,  and  the 
haraphel^  or  thickest  darkness,  its  swathing  band."* 
Birth  or  generation  simply  is  a  conception  that  belongs 
to  sober  prose.  It  is,  as  we  have  seen,  at  the  root  of  the 
most  philosophical  language  in  its  application  to  natural 
growth  and  organization.  Nature  is  always  a  coming  forth 
of  one  thing  from  another.  But  here,  to  bring  up  again 
the  remark  made  in  the  beginning  of  this  criticism,  the 
poetical  imagination  goes  beyond  this  primary  conception 
which  may  enter  into  prose,  even  the  prose  of  science 
and  philosophy.  It  goes  beyond  it,  and  selects  others 
which  are  purely  imaginative  or  poetical.  Here  we  have 
not  only  the  birth,  the  genesis,  the  out-going,  but  the  first 
raiment  of  the  offspring,  the  cloud  and  its  swathing  band 
the  thick  darkness  of  the  primeval  chaos,  in  which  it  was 
imrsed  until  it  could  bear  the  light,  and  its  fluids  were 
converted  into  solids,  and  its  granite  bones  were  formed, 
and  it  thus  grew  into  an  abode  for  vegetable,  and  animal, 
and  rational  life. 

''  When  I  brake  upon  it  my  decree,  and  put  bars  and 
doors,  and  said,  hitherto  shalt  thou  come  and  no  farthei-, 
and  here  shalt  thou  stop  in  the  proud  sweUing  of  thy 
waves."  Here,  again,  is  the  same  difference  between  the 
simple  phenomenal  and  the  poetical.  There  is  a  going 
out  of  the  imagination  in  search  of  images,  and  so  again 
it  finds  its  bars,  and  doors,  and  locks,  and  bolts.  The 
expression,  •'  I  brake  upon  it  my  decree,''-  is  peculiar  in 
its  boldness.    This  very  pictorial  poetry  has  most  graphic- 

*  What  an  image  here  of  power  !  The  mighty  earth  itself 
is  robed  in  its  swathing  garments,  as  the  nurse  turns  and 
handles  the  infant  on  her  lap. 

U* 


402  THE   BIRTH   OP  THE   LIGHT. 

ally  presented  the  image  bj  inverting  it,  as  we  may 
say,  on  the  retina  of  the  mind's  eye.  The  ocean  breaks 
against  the  barrier  of  the  Almighty,  and  this  is  painted 
as  though  its  impetuosity  were  anticipated,  and  the  law, 
or  bound,  were  suddenly  made  to  breast  or  break  its 
raging  waters. 

"  Hast  thou  commanded  the  morning  from  thy  days  ? 
Hast  thou  made  the  dawn  to  know  its  place  ?  It  is  turned 
as  clay  to  the  seal,  and  they  stand  forth  as  a  garment.'^ 
•  This  verse,  especially  the  latter  part  of  it,  is  somewhat 
diJficult  in  a  critical  point  of  view,  but  its  general  sense 
is  obvious,  and  any  one  can  see  that  it  is  of  the  highest 
order  of  poetry.  As  the  seal  gives  form,  and  distinct- 
ness, and  meaning,  to  the  chaotic  or  formless  clay,  and 
may  thus  be  said  to  create  its  images,  so  is  the  effect  of 
light  upon  nature.*  It  may  almost  be  said,  to  make  a 
new  creation  every  time  the  ''  east,"  to  use  the  language 
in  Job,  "  spreads  it  over  the  earth,"  and  in  this  sense, 
may  it  may  be  truly  affirmed,  of  God's  works  and  ways, — 
"Thy  mercies  are  neiv  every  onorning,  great  is  thy  faith- 
fulness,"—  thy  law-abiding  covenant  faithfulness,  even 
in  the  natural  as  well  as  in  the  spiritual  world. 

It  has  been  said  that  modern  natural  science  has 
answered  the  animated  interrogatories  with  which  this 
chapter  abounds.  It  has  been  boldly  affirmed  that  they 
would  not  now  be  asked. f     We  know,  it  is  boastingly 

*  From  some  such  idea,  perhaps,  comes  the  Rabbinical  and 
Arabic  word  for  naturCy  as  derived  from  the  root  yaxa,  to 
immerse,  stamp,  imprint.  Nature  is  the  visible  manifesta- 
tion of  the  invisible  types  or  ideas. 

fThe  smattering  lecturer  may  talk  of  science  having  "ren- 
dered obsolete  the  language  of  the  Bible,"  but  it  required 
the  far  deeper  science,  and  deeper  philosophy  of  a  Humboldt 


THE  STOREHOUSES  OF  THE  HAIL.       403 

said,  on  what  "  the  earth  rests,"  or  rather,  that  it  rests 
on  nothing.  We  know  what  assigned  its  ancient  bound 
to  the  waters.  We  know  "  whence  light  cometh ;"  we 
"  have  taken  it  to  its  bound,"  and  have  '■'  explored  the 
path  to  its  house."  It  can  no  longer  be  asked  as  a 
doubtful  question :  "  Hast  thou  entered  into  the  treasures 
of  the  snow,  and  hast  thou  seen  the  store  houses  of  the 
hail  ?"  But  is  it  so  ?  Is  not  all  this  boasting  as  false  as 
it  is  irreverent  ?  Science  has  taken  many  a  step  of  pro- 
gress ;  she  has  explored  phenomenon  after  phenomenon, 
but  has  she  really  arrived  at  those  ultimate  truths  to 
which  all  these  questions  point  ?  Is  she  really  any  nearer 
to  them  than  in  the  days  of  Job  ;  or  is  she  not  still  on 
the  outside  in  respect  to  the  ineffable  facts,  or  first  work- 
ings of  nature,  that  this  sublime  challenge  has  preemi- 
nently in  view  ?  Does  she  truly  "  know  where  light 
dwelleth  ?  Can  she  even  explain  one  of  its  most  common 
phenomena  ?  Take  a  question  which  presents  itself  in 
almost  everything  we  see.  What  is  color  ?  Or  rather, 
what  constitutes  it,  and  makes  it  what  it  is  ?  Why  is  this 
object  red,  and  that  one  yellow  or  green  ?  Because  this 
reflects  the  red  rays,  it  is  sagely  said,  and  that  the  green. 
But  the  question  is  not  answered,  or  only  comes  up  again 
in  a  new  shape.  Why  the  difference  of  reflection?  The 
mystery  is  but  a  few  inches  from  our  hands  and  eyes. 
The  true  reason  must  be  very  near  the  surface.  But 
there  it  Hes  as  unknown  to  us  as  it  was  to  Abraham  or 


to  observe,  "that,  though  in  the  present  state  of  our  physical 
knowledge,  many  of  these  questions,  propounded  to  Job,  may 
be  expressed  under  more  scientific  definitions,  yet  it  can 
scarcely  be  said  that  we  can  answer  them  more  satisfactorily." 
Humboldt's  Kosmos,  vol.  ii,  p.  57. 


404     HAS   SCIENCE   ANSWERED   THESE    QUESTIONS  * 

Job.  Science  can  only  affirm  that  it  is  something  in  the 
figure,  site,  order,  or  affinities  of  the  particles,  in  conse- 
quence of  which  the  light  is  reflected  to  us  in  a  certain 
manner  producing  a  certain  sensation.  But  Aristotle 
could  say  all  that,  and  has  said  it  very  well.  The 
Schoolmen  could  say  all  that.  We  have  split  up  the  ray 
of  light ;  we  have  polarized  it ;  we  have  measured  all  its 
angles  of  refraction.  But  we  are  still  on  the  outside  in 
respect  to  its  interior  law,  even  as  concerned  in  its  most 
common  manifestations. 

Again, — Has  science  truly  "  entered  into  the  trea- 
sures of  the  rain,  or  seen  the  store-houses  of  the  hail  ?" 
She  has  undoubtedly  connected  many  links  unknown  to 
the  meteorology  of  Job's  day.  She  has  analyzed  a  drop 
of  water,  and  decomposed  it  into  its  apparent  elemental 
parts,  thus  splitting  a  fact  in  two,  or  getting  two  questions 
instead  of  one ;  but  has  she  found  out  what  makes  it  a 
drop,  in  other  words,  what  constitutes  fluidity,  or  what  is 
its  law  in  distinction  from  the  phenomena  which  it  pre- 
sents. Here  is  another  fact,  a  fact  which  may  be  very 
far  from  an  ultimate  one,  a  fact  which  might  seem  to  lie 
very  near  the  surface  of  things,  a  fact  science  has  tried 
very  hard  to  explain,  but  which  has,  as  yet,  baffled  all 
our  keenest  investigations.  We  talk  much  of  fluids ; 
the  word  is  the  grand  solvent  for  every  imagined  mys- 
tery ;  but  its  own  mystery,  the  mystery  of  fluidity  in  its 
most  obvious  form,  we  cannot  solve.  Is  any  dark  act 
of  nature,  or  spirit  even,  to  be  explained,  it  is  all  owing 
to  a  fluid,  or  fluids,  of  some  kind,  magnetic,  electric, 
or  vitalic  ;  and  some  think  that  when  they  have  said  this, 
they  have  gone  to  the  very  bottom  of  the  matter.  But 
what  is  a  fluid,  or  fluidity  ?     What  is  the  fluidity  even 


HAS   SCIENCE  ANSWERED   THESE   QUESTIONS?     405 

of  water  'i  Here,  again,  we  may  be  greeted  with  the 
wise  answer, —  It  is  some  disposition  of  the  particles  ;  or 
it  is  connected  with  a  certain  temperature.  But  we  are 
yet  in  the  phenomenal.  Caloric,  as  the  designation  of 
a  fluid-making  power,  is  but  a  name  for  the  fact  to  be 
accounted  for ;  diminution  of  cohesion  is  but  another. 
Wlien  we  attempt  to  conceive  of  the  possible  internal 
constitution  by  which  the  effect  is  produced,  we  are  baffled 
on  every  side.  It  cannot  be  dependent  on  the  sparseness 
of  the  particles ;  for  many  light  bodies  are  solid,  whilst 
heavier  and  more  dense  ones  are  fluid.  The  particles  of 
quicksilver  must  be  much  nearer  together  than  those  of 
chalk.  The  reason  cannot  lie  in  their  shape ;  for  the 
same  apparent  substance  changes  from  a  liquid  to  a 
solid,  or  from  a  solid  to  a  liquid ;  and  it  cannot  be  sup- 
posed that  in  such  cases  there  is  a  change  in  the  very 
figure  of  the  particles  themselves.  We  have  left  only 
the  vague  word  relation,  but  we  cannot  tell  what  the 
relation  is.  Aristotle  could  have  brought  it  under  this 
category,  as  well  as  Sir  Humphrey  Davy.  It  is  a  cer- 
tain relation  of  the  particles  to  each  other ;  and  so  we 
leave  the  matter  just  where  we  found  it,  and  where  it 
has  rested  since  the  earliest  philosophising. 

Has  science,  then,  really  answered  these  questions  ? 
We  must  keep  in  view  the  spirit  of  this  sublime  chal- 
lenge as  meant  not  only  for  the  days  of  Job,  but  for  all 
ages.  The  language  is  the  language  of  that  day,  but 
the  ultimate  facts  it  presents  no  science  has  yet  explored. 
Take  two  substances,  as  near  together  as  the  snow-flake 
and  the  drop  of  water.  Twin  children  of  nature  that 
they  are,  and  evermore  changing  the  one  into  the  other, 
yet  all  the  chemistry  of  the  age,  with  all  the  new  chemico- 


406       "the  secret  place  of  the  thunder." 

spiritual  light  which  is  professing  to  look  into  the  very 
interior  constitution  of  things,  cannot  assign  that  internal 
cause  which  makes  their  difference  or  their  identity. 
"  By  the  breath  of  the  Lord  frost  is  given."  Most  rea- 
ders are  doubtless  familiar  with  that  remarkable  appear- 
ance that  snow-flakes  and  crystals  of  frost  present  under 
the  microscope,  and  sometimes  to  the  naked  eye, — 
wheels  within  wheels,  orbs  concentric  and  eccentric, 
radii,  sectors,  lunes,  and  polygons,  presenting  figures  and 
angles  of  every  kind,  and  which  the  highest  magnifying 
power  only  exhibits  in  a  still  higher  perfection.  What 
is  yet  more  wonderful,  all  these  beautiful  forms  come  by 
a  very  rapid  process  from  the  chaotic  vapor  of  the  clouds, 
or  from  formless  drops  so  strangely  transformed  into  other 
and  far  different  appearances.  This  change,  the  Bible 
says,  is  "by  the  word  of  the  Lord  which  runneth  very 
swiftly,"  Psalms,  cxlvii,  15.  Again,  in  Job,  it  is  called 
the  spirit  or  breath  of  the  Lord, — "By  the  breath  of  the 
Lord  frost  is  given."  Such  language  may  seem  very 
simple,  and  very  primitive  to  some  of  our  scientific  con- 
ventions ;  but  what  can  they  put  in  its  place  that  makes 
any  approach  to  the  wondrous  secret.  Crystallization  is 
the  magic  word.  It  is,  indeed,  a  beautiful  term,  beauti- 
ful, too,  because  it  is  so  strictly  phenomenal,  that  is,  a 
name  for  appearances,  but  it  certainly  furnishes  no  ex- 
planation of  the  phenomena  themselves.  Science  knows 
no  more  of  the  hidden  power  at  work  among  these  parti- 
cles of  vapor  than  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  mysterious 
nebula  of  Orion.  It  is  from  the  same  hreath,  too,  come 
apparently  the  most  oi3posite  results, — "  hail  stones  and 
coals,  or  flames,  of  fire. '^''  How  far  have  our  naturalists 
penetrated  into  this  interior  laboratory  of  nature,  where 


OUR  TRUE  OBLIGATION  TO  SCIENCE.      40T 

the  hail  and  the  lightning  are  generated  together, — this 
"  secret  place  of  the  thunder,"  to  use  one  of  the  sublime 
expressions  bj  which  the  inspired  Lyrist  designates  God*s 
concealed  residence  amid  the  powers  of  the  natural  world. 
But  let  us  not  underrate  our  real  obligations  to  science. 
She  cannot  answer,  it  is  true,  this  wondrous  challenge  of 
the  patriarchal  book,  but  to  every  one  who  thinks  aright 
she  has  given  it,  perhaps,  a  deeper  interest  than  it  could 
have  possessed  in  the  days  of  Job.  Instead  of  science 
superseding  these  remarkable  interrogatories,  it  is  through 
her  lens  we  are  enabled  to  see  farther  into  their  infini- 
tude. The  higher  its  magnifying  power,  the  more  does 
it  reveal  to  us  that  these  depths  are,  indeed,  unfathom- 
able. In  this  sense,  our  highest  physical  knowledge  has 
not  yet  "  entered  into  the  secret  treasures  of  the  snow," 
or  seen  the  concealed  "store  houses  of  the  hail."  Much 
less  does  it  "know  where  light  dwelleth,"  or  "  on  what 
are  laid  the  foundations  of  the  earth."  The  business  of 
science  is,  after  all,  and  ever  will  be,  with  phenomena. 
She  has,  therefore,  no  right  to  demand  that  revelation 
should  have  employed  her  ever  defective  language.  We 
might  with  more  reason  insist,  that  instead  of  the  Hebrew 
and  the  Greek  which  the  Divine  Wisdom  has  selected, 
the  Bible  should  have  been  written  in  the  style  of  each 
age,  and  in  every  man's  own  vernacular  tongue. 


DATE  DUE 

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GAYLORD 

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